There are a lot of stories to be told involving zombies, but cinema is not often the place where new stories are told. For every slice of brow-beating originality like World War Z, there are a few dozen made-for-pennies films that go by something along the lines of Zombies vs. Abolitionists . But there’s no need to come up with new zombie movies so long as there are George Romero films to remake. And the upcoming Day of the Dead remake from Millennium Films has landed its director in Mark Tonderai, best known for Jennifer Lawrence’s (arguably) worst film, last year’s House at the End of the Street.
I guess it makes sense that he’s the guy they hired, since he co-wrote the script with Lars Jacobson, who wrote and directed 2008’s pitch black thriller Baby Blues. It will be produced by Christa Campbell and Lati Grobman, the duo who brought Texas Chainsaw 3D into being. Let’s all give them a big round of applause.
Shopped around at the recent American Film Market, Deadline reports this version of Day of the Dead will take place years after the Earth’s population has been mostly eradicated and follow a small group of survivors and scientists try to figure out a cure for the outbreak, but only make things worse.
Romero’s original focuses on the attempted domestication of a rather docile zombie named Bub. There were cultural and social messages that made their way into his film that I’m sure will either be heavy handed or entirely missing from this update.
Also responsible for the 2008 U.K. thriller Hush, Tonderai also directed this year’s Lifetime Original Stalkers with Mena Suvari and Drea de Matteo. He’s also attached to direct the viral outbreak drama Peste with Abigail Breslin, but who knows if or when that will ever come to be.
All of this wouldn’t be so big of a deal if there wasn’t already yet another Night of the Living Dead remake coming, not to mention the beyond awful 2008 remake of Day of the Dead that already exists, which Suvari also starred in. Re-experience that awfulness below.
Producers are shooting for a production start next summer. Spend the rest of your life between now and then trying to forget this exists. But here’s the trailer for the original to remind you how good zombie movies can be.
