Earlier this year, it was revealed that Lati Grobman and Christa Campbell acquired the rights to remake George A. Romero's Day of the Dead. The project continues to move forward and we now know who will be directing the movie.
According to Deadline, Millennium Films has hired Mark Tonderai to take on this project. Previously, Tonderai directed 2012's House at the End of the Street, starring Jennifer Lawrence. As well as coming on board as the director, he also wrote the script with Lars Jacobson. There aren't too many details on the story at this time, except for the fact that it's a modern-day retelling of Romero's story and we have a brief synopsis from the most recent report:
"...years after the zombie plague has wiped out most of Earth’s population, a group of scientists and survivors attempt to find a cure, and instead open Pandora’s box."
Filming is expected to begin in Summer 2014 and we should have casting news in the coming months. When we spoke to George A. Romero back in August, he confirmed that he had been approached to become involved with the remake, but declined:
"I’m not involved, but they’ve been trying to get me involved. Initially, they called my partner and I, and they asked to make the original script. Originally, I wrote a longer script for Day of the Dead, but it was too expensive and I had to cut it back. The result was the Day of the Dead that now exists. It wasn’t that different and a lot of the characters were still the same, but it was bigger and there were a lot of action sequences above ground.
They wanted to make it and that script is available on the internet. I said that I had no idea who owned the rights. Even though I never shot that movie, I knew that the rights were held by my ex-partner and I didn’t know where he sold the rights. Then they asked If I’d write a new script and I said I didn’t want to do that. It’s sort of “been there, done that.” The movie has already been remade and it was terrible. [Laughs]"
After spending more than 10 years as a consultant in the tech and entertainment industry, Jonathan James launched Daily Dead in 2010 to share his interest in horror and sci-fi. Since then, it has grown into an online magazine with a staff of writers that provide daily news, reviews, interviews, and special features.
As the Editor-in-Chief of Daily Dead, Jonathan is responsible for bringing the latest horror news to millions of readers from around the world. He is also consulted with as an expert on zombies in entertainment and pop culture, providing analyses of the zombie sub-genre to newspapers, radio stations, and convention attendees.
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