The Godfather of the Dead is back to making moving zombies. George Romero's Empire of the Dead has been picked up by Demarest for a television adaptation, the production company announced at the Cannes Film Festival last month.
Comics are a natural translation for moving pictures. The current domination of movie adaptations of comic book classics was naturally a Romero dimension. Whedon's supernatural cult classic Buffy is in itself at its tenth season. It was only a matter of time before George Romero turned his sights to the graphic novel medium for his satirical interpretations. His oversaturation perhaps of moving zombie pictures pushed him to leave the genre for new creators. Romero continued to produce relevant work outside of film when kids thought he had retired, but graphical representation of post apocalyptic endemic outbreaks are ideal Romero settings to express his take on the revelry of the relevant social grid.
The living dead has been Romero's topic since late '68 when he and his friends released their independently produced oeuvre The Night of the Living Dead. The movie was met with hesitation at first for its extreme gore, but was eventually picked up by audience and critics alike. It was perhaps the strangest thing that can come out in film when Vietnam was raging and political leaders were assassinated. The film was a definitive cult classic through and through.
It will be interesting when Romero finally pulls off Empire of the Dead for television. The 2014 Marvel mini series Empire of the Dead published in three acts of five parts is a Romero conflict between vampires and zombies set in post apocalyptic New York City. The series has yet to reveal humanity's resolution to the conflict in choosing between two evils with three more issues to go, but to know that a script is in the works from the Godfather of the Dead himself is a resolution worth waiting for.
George Romero's Empire of the Dead will be executive produced by Demarest's Sam Englebardt, William D. Johnson, Romero, and Peter Grunwald.
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