A few years ago, with the ‘Twilight’ craze, we were bombarded with vampires in movies, tv, and books… and most of them not good. Now with the success of AMC’s ‘The Walking Dead’, it seems that the next big thing is zombies. We’ve already got a zombie love story movie (‘Warm Bodies’) on the way. So what’s next? Well…
Deadline announced today that Amazon Studios is collaborating with the legendary writer and filmmaker Clive Barker (‘Hellraiser’) to make a new film titled ‘Zombies vs Gladiators’. Yes, you heard that right. The man behind some of the most gruesome and amazing horror ever (not the least of which was the often overlooked ‘Nightbreed’) is about to make what looks to be a cheeseball film.
‘Zombies vs Gladiators’ is described as “a film in which a shaman about to die in the Coliseum casts a spell that rouses history’s first wave of zombies. It’s up to a gladiator to stop the spread of the zombie horde and save Rome.” Barker has been brought on board to do a script rewrite and then direct the film. Here’s what Barker has to say about the project:
“I’m excited by the opportunity to interweave two very rich narrative threads. One of them concerns itself with the reality of the decadence of Rome and its rise and fall. The other is a fantastical narrative element – the living dead. My brief to myself on this project is to give the audience not only zombies they have never seen before but also a Rome they have never seen before.”
The Deadline report says that ‘Zombies vs Gladiators’ is but one of sixteen films currently underway at Amazon Studios. The idea behind Amazon Studios is that users can submit ideas and scripts and Amazon will pick from them. So far, they’ve had 9,000 scripts and 1,000 series pilot scripts submitted. If this is the kind of film that’s being brought to the forefront of that pool, I can’t wait to see what other cheesy ideas Amazon will dredge up. It sounds like a bigger budget version of Syfy’s Saturday night b-movies… or maybe a very special episode of ‘Deadliest Warrior’.
‘Zombies vs Gladiators’ definitely has potential to be awful fun with lots of hacking and gore if Barker doesn’t take it too seriously. What do you think? Will you watch a movie with zombies invading ancient Rome? Sound off and let us know your thoughts below!
