Sounds like Universal is making plans for more Dead films, even before the latest one hits theaters:
Land of the Dead is the follow up to the classic George Romero 80's film Day of the Dead and if all goes well with this new release it will the beginning of a whole new "Dead" series.
The producers and director George Romero told the IESB that a sequel to this new film will made if this film is successful. Considering that Land of the Dead cost less than 20 million to produce, DVD sales alone should guarantee a profit to the studio.
In fact, all other projects of the helmer will have to take a backseat in the immediate future if Universal decides for an immediate follow up to Land of the Dead including his involvement in Mick Garris' Masters of Horror Anthology that is currently being filmed in Vancouver.
The next film will be a second chapter to the story that we see in Land of the Dead, we will see the surviving characters continue their search for survival in what has become a World of the Dead.
I'm seeing Land tomorrow with The Thing. Advance word has been extremely positive, though I've stuck with my policy of not reading any early reviews. I'm just happy we're finally getting a new Romero zombie movie after a 20 year lag.
It boggles the mind to think of the crap the man had to deal with to get another Dead movie greenlit, while Uwe Boll was inexplicably given money to direct the reek-tastic House of the Dead and Romero himself was passed over for Paul W.S. Anderson so the latter could direct Resident Evil. I hope Romero gets a trilogy out of this, so the guy can make some money and finally profit from assholes like Boll and Eli Roth hijacking his reputation.
Ironically, Land of the Dead might suffer from being released at more or less the tail end of a three-year glut of zombie flicks (the aforementioned HotD, both Resident Evils, 28 Days Later, Undead, Shaun of the Dead, and the Dawn remake, to name what I can off the top of my head). Everyone seems to take it as a good sign that they moved the release date up from August, but I'm not so sure.
True, it's opening the same weekend as Bewitched and Herbie: Fully Loaded, and I can't think of three more disparate target audiences, but you've still got Batman Begins to contend with, and War of the Worlds opens next Wednesday. I think Land will do respectably, but I'll be surprised if it opens higher than #5.
And how many post-zombie apocalypse movies can Romero realistically make? I assume the humans get booted from their stronghold in Land, which leaves them dealing with the undead out in the open in the next movie. Where do they go next? Underground? The high seas? Outer space?
Oh well, I hope I'm wrong. And besides, I'll be their opening night for any new zombie movie from The Master.
Romero directs Will Farrell in the wacky domestic comedy, "I Married a Zombie!"