George Romero claims The Walking Dead and Brad Pitt Oversaturated The Once Popular Genre
In an interview with the Hollywood Reporter, Night of the Living Dead director, George Romero, had a lot to say about the zombie genre he helped originate. Over the years, Romero has always kept the zombie franchise alive with films like Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead, and Land of the Dead, but now things have changed. But when asked about the future of Romero’s Dead Franchise he says, “I’ve sort of dropped out of it. The Dead are everywhere these days. I think really Brad Pitt killed it. The Walking Dead and Brad Pitt just sort of killed it all.”
This isn’t to say that Romero had a problem with World War Z or it’s author Max Brooks.
Romero said, “Max Brooks is a friend of mine, and I thought the film was not at all representative what the book was and the zombies were, I don’t know, ants crawling over the wall in Israel. Army ants. You might as well make ‘The Naked Jungle.’”
One of Romero’s issue with World War Z was the large scale of the film. If it’s up to Romero, he says the secret to the zombie genre is to keep things low budget and stay close to the message. “It’s more about the message, for me. That’s what it is, and I’m using this platform to be able to show my feelings of what I think.”
If you’re in New York this Saturday and want to see what Romero is talking about in glorious 4k, the Museum of Modern Art is holding a screening of a 4k restoration of the 1968 classic, Dawn of the Dead. The screening will be at 8pm on Saturday with an encore showing on November 12, at 7pm.
