Curiously, given his name, one wonders if this character is meant to be the lead character from Romero’s 1968 film, as played by Duane Jones (perhaps making this series a prequel to the original movie). While Ben has not committed to any political system or belief, and is noted by Romero as being a cynic, deep down he has hope for humanity.
To have been set in Pittsburgh, the Night of the Living Dead: The Series treatment features brief outlines of nineteen episodes, boasting a core cast of a half dozen leads, including:īEN REMINGTON: 21 years old, “an African American version of Atticus Finch.” After a brief stint in the Army, Ben turned to journalism in college, and even hosts a “chat and bicker” radio program called Viewpoints on campus. Not a spoof, but some “good dark fun” nevertheless. He namedrops a few films to reference the intended tone, including Little Big Man, Prizzi’s Honor and the then newly-released Scream – “all which took dark subjects and treated them with irreverence and wit,” Romero writes. However, he insists that the show must be concerned with mankind’s “urgent, terrifying future”, suggesting that it should take a Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman approach to horror, referring to the cult soap opera satire. Surprisingly, Romero notes in his opening pages that the series will have a more comedic bent, describing it as a “sophisticated black satire of man’s behavior in crisis”. ‘Night of the Living Dead The Series’ title page “With society in a state of chaos, and people fighting for survival,” the treatment notes, “‘explaining’ the phenomenon is far less important than ‘surviving it’.” As such, the earlier Voodoo explanation is as good as any other. Romero Archival Collection at the University of Pittsburgh, which houses numerous works from the late horror legend, including produced and unproduced screenplays, treatments, artwork, correspondence, props, posters and more!įrom a first draft treatment dated October, 1997, Romero’s Night of the Living Dead: The Series opens with the famous tagline from the director’s second Dead installment, Dawn of the Dead: “When there’s no more room in hell…the dead will walk the earth!” Romero then sets the stage for his tale, revealing that the show is starting at the very beginning, when the dead are just starting to return to life, baffling scientists. In researching this article, your writer paid a visit to the George A.
While the project may have never made it to screens, it is nevertheless a fascinating peek into Romero’s potential return to zombie storytelling which might have predated his work on Resident Evil and the final three Dead films, which closed out his career. Though it exists now only as an unproduced twenty-seven page treatment, NOTLD: The Series nevertheless displays Romero’s patented blend of horror and black humor, bolstered by a large cast of characters and some promising Pittsburgh locations. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead: The Series, a proposed television show set within the world of the celebrated horror filmmaker’s signature Dead franchise. This installment of Phantom Limbs finds us digging up George A.
0 kommentar(er)
