Robert Kirkman and Zack Snyder appeared at the Hero Complex Film Festival last night for a Q&A session and screening of Snyder's Dawn of the Dead, while Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright were present for a Shaun of the Dead screening.
We have some highlights from the Q&A, including Snyder talking about intense zombie fans and Kirkman mentioning some of his favorite horror movies. Of course, there was some talk of The Walking Dead as well, and there is an interesting conversation about something you may have missed in Shaun of the Dead:
Zach Snyder said that Watchmen fans weren't as intense as zombie fans when it was originally announced that he would direct a remake of Dawn of the Dead: "Zombie fans [were more strident], for sure. One hundred percent sure... I feel like the ‘Watchmen’ fans, you can reason with them, you know.... But zombie fans are certainly much more — especially before the movie came out, and we were just talking about what the movie would be, and how we would remake ‘Dawn of the Dead,’ it was pretty intense.”
They started talking about their influences, and Robert Kirkman admitted that he got into horror movies late in life: “Horror-wise, I actually was not allowed to watch horror films for a really long time, which I think is why I’m such a sissy... I was actually allowed to rent a horror movie, like every year on Halloween, and that was the only time I was ever allowed to watch a horror movie. So every year, I either got ‘Hellraiser’ or ‘Hellraiser 2.’”
Something we were curious about was whether or not discussions for The Walking Dead TV show are influencing any of the recent or upcoming comic book storylines, but Robert Kirkman says that is not the case: “I have a really hard-and-fast rule to try and make sure that the comic doesn’t change because of the show, because I feel like the comic existed for a long time before the show, and I would be doing a disservice to myself if I changed the way I did anything,”
Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg said that they both preferred slow moving zombies "because they find them scarier, comparing the fast and slow ones to a bullet and a tumor." However, the most interesting part of the conversation was about something most fans of the movie probably didn't realize- Ed's original plan for Shaun was carried out:
Via FirstShowing: "Pegg: You might have noticed, Nick [Frost's] plan in the Winchester on the first night, the night Shaun and Liz break up, is exactly what happens [over the course of the film]. What is it?
Wright: "First thing in the morning, have a bloody mary," which is bloody Mary in the garden. [The first zombie they encounter is a girl named Mary in their backyard.] Then "have a bite at the King's Head," the king is Bill Nighy and they bite his head. Then "grab a couple at The Little Princess" and the couple is Diane and David and the little princess is Kate (who plays Liz). And then "stagger back to the Winchester" because they pretend to be zombies, and then "stagger back for some shots" because there's a rifle over the bar.
Pegg: We are so up ourselves, it's ridiculous."
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