Will George A. Romero ever conclude his Dead series? Yes, but, if Survival of the Dead performs well at the box office, not anytime soon. I chatted with Romero earlier this afternoon, and he continually expressed his thanks for having the opportunity to make one zombie film, let alone six. He’s had such good fortune with the series, the ideas must always be brewing and he’s got some new ones up his sleeve should Survival be a hit.
In hopes that film #5, Diary of the Dead, would hit it big, Romero started formulating a plan for the future and came up with not one, but three concepts. “I actually came up with three ideas based off Diary of the Dead,” he revealed. “Each of the story ideas take a character from Diary and follows them on their own adventure and they meet each other and the plot points coalesce.”
Survival takes care of the first character, Sarge (Alan Van Sprang), the guy who raids the RV of the main characters in Diary and becomes a central player in Survival, but who’s next? “There’s a group of looters, African Americans, that are sort of holed up in the city and that would be probably the next group,” Romero explained. “Then I’d sort of wrap it all up with the blond character, Tracy, who gets away at the end from our main group.”
Romero is well aware that Survival could be his last zombie film, and while I didn’t love the movie, I am pulling for him to keep it all going. He proposes an interesting idea at the end of Survival that has the potential to be expanded in subsequent films.
But, if this is indeed the finale, Romero won’t be left empty handed. He mentioned two other scripts that are “in the bullpen” that he’s already secured financing for. Oddly enough, neither of them is in the zombie genre. He said, “One is just a little personal film that I’d really like to make and one is horror, but it’s not zombie.” More Dead films, his passion project or whatever, Romero’s four-decade-long career isn’t likely to slow down anytime soon.
