News Of The Living Dead

As we've stated before, 2004 has been overwhelmingly the year of the zombie. We've had the wonderful Shaun of the Dead, the stunning Dawn of the Dead remake, and coming up still is Resident Evil: Apocalypse. Yep, it's been a good twelve months for shambling, shuffling, brain-eating ghouls. Yet it's been slightly galling to see the zombie renaissance take place without input from the man, the legend, the genius who started it all: George A. Romero. The Pittsburgh-based film-maker has had to watch while remakes and homages to his past work - the Dead trilogy, Night of the Living Dead, Dawn... and Day of the Dead - invade cinemas, even as his own attempts to get a fourth in his series stumble and stutter. Well, not anymore. Hard on the heels of the announcement that he will be directing Diamond Dead, a zombie musical (unrelated to his trilogy) produced by Tony and Ridley Scott, comes today's welcome news that a fourth Dead film is on the way. Land of the Dead - replacing the earlier mooted titles, Dead Reckoning and Twilight of the Dead - will start filming in Winnipeg or Pittsburgh this October, after Romero finally secured a financing and distribution deal. And for zombie fans, that's joyous news. The movie will take place long after the original trilogy, with the zombies' threat to society significantly reduced. Now they are treated with all the compassion afforded to homeless people, and drag themselves around the streets of a walled city where anarchy reigns on the streets and skyscrapers have been specially fortified to protect the wealthy. However, a group of scavengers must thwart a plot to overthrow the city's hierarchy while facing another problem: the zombies are mutating into more advanced, more deadly creatures... Romero will direct from his own script. No word yet on budget, or whether effects maestro Tom Savini will return. We'll keep you posted, naturally.