With the tragic passing of George A. Romero in July of this year, it seemed that the “of the Dead” series was coming to an end but that isn’t going to be the case. Back in 2014, we learned that George’s son Cameron Romero was planning on bringing us a film titled ‘Night of the Living Dead: Origins’ that would be a prequel movie with his father’s blessing. In fact, he had been able to raise $30,000 in crowdfunding at the time to get things going.
Times have changed and George’s son has now titled the movie as ‘Rise of the Living Dead’ which is still set to show us a prequel of the movie that introduced us to the modern zombie. If it were anyone outside of George’s son this idea would seem blasphemous but having his father’s blessing, and likely input before his passing, makes this a potential great passing of the torch.
In fact, Cameron is calling the film a “love letter to my dad.”
That alone will make fans of the franchise want to see it. In the movie, we’ll follow Dr. Ryan Cartwright who is “a military-funded scientist tasked with finding a way to sustain human life in the event of a nuclear holocaust.” It’ll take place after the Cuban Missile Crisis during the height of the Cold War and unless Cameron is planning to play a game of misdirection with us, this sounds like exactly what will end up causing the zombie apocalypse.
Romero’s groundbreaking work on his “of the Dead” series is cited for the inspiration of just about every creator of zombie’s since its release from ‘The Walking Dead’ to ‘Zombieland’ to ‘Shaun of the Dead’ to ‘Return of the Living Dead’ and the myriad of indie zombie films which have been released over the years. It doesn’t matter if the directors were trying to give him praise, top his work, or come up with something original – almost every one of them will mention George’s work as an inspiration.
I’m hoping that Cameron is able to give us a prequel worth watching and, if successful, expand on the universe with more modern films as well. Ideally, it will be joined by Matt Birman’s ‘Road of the Dead‘ which was still rumored to be in development solely by Birman after George’s passing. Only time will tell though.
Are you looking for an origin that actually explains a bit more of the zombie outbreak from ‘Night of the Living Dead’? Share your thoughts below!
Source: Screen Rant
