King of the zombies and Empire icon, George A Romero is planning to resurrect his shuffling flesh-eaters for another apocalyptic epic. Going under the amusing working title of Something Of The Dead, the horror meister plans to follow on from the events of Diary Of The Dead but promises it won't be a direct sequel.
“It’ll be about three weeks in (past the initial zombie outbreak) and it doesn’t start with the people in the mansion (at the end of Diary Of The Dead)," says Romero to Shlock Around The Clock. "It starts with the blonde who drove away and the national guardsmen who robbed the people. So those are the only characters that return.
"What it’s about is tribalism. How the internet creates a Hatfields and McCoys situation. It’s on an island, where people have been lured by someone on the net as a safe haven, but really what these guys are trying to do is hold them up at the boat docks.”
For anyone who has read Max Brooks' excellent World War Z (which tells the tale of a worldwide zombie infestation and is itself crying out to be made into a TV series), there's even more exciting news from Voltage Pictures' Nicolas Chartier.
“We’re shooting underwater zombies,” Chartier revealed. “They’re swimming, grabbing people’s legs, pulling them down. It’s a lot of fun.”
Zombies. Underwater. Genius!
While we'll agree that Diary Of The Dead was a little underwhelming, we've still got enough faith in Romero's abilities to get really rather excited by this. Keep it locked on to Empire Online for all the latest developments.