'Dawn of the Dead' being remade
NEW YORK (Variety) -- Commercials wizard Zack Snyder will direct the remake of George Romero's horror classic "Dawn of the Dead," digging up a June start date for the zombie redo.
James Gunn ("Scooby-Doo") has scripted a reinvention of a 1979 film that cost $640,000 and became a highly profitable cult favorite. The picture, Romero's sequel to the groundbreaking "Night of the Living Dead," revolved around a swarm of slow-moving cannibalistic corpses who snack on the inhabitants of a shopping mall.
It featured a healthy helping of humor along with the gore, down to the notion that, even after death and partial decomposition, consumer instincts would be strong enough to propel a reanimated corpse right to the mall. The update aims to place a greater emphasis on action and a young cast.
"The story benefits from a larger canvas, and the fact that malls have changed so much," said rights controller Richard P. Rubinstein, who produced the original, "There are all kinds of things we can use, down to the food courts. George did a lot with a pedestrian mall in Monroeville, Pennsylvania, where the only real highlight was a hockey rink."
Though "Dawn of the Dead" will mark his feature debut, Snyder has a long reel of European commercials featuring stars such as Catherine Zeta-Jones, Robert De Niro, Harrison Ford and Sean Connery. He was once set to direct "S.W.A.T.," only to depart because he wanted to make an R-rated film.
"Dawn of the Dead" will be distributed in the United States and most of the world by Universal Pictures, where the film's producer, Strike Entertainment, is based.
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