Romero Ready With More Dead

From:Sci Fi Wire
Date:17-JUNE-05

George A. Romero, who returns after two decades to the genre he created with the upcoming zombie film Land of the Dead, told SCI FI Wire that the movie may mark the beginning of a new round of Dead films. "I mean, if this opens strong, I might be in a situation where I have to do another one of these or will be asked to do another one of these right away," writer/director Romero said in a news conference. "In which case I've sort of left the characters, you know, the truck and those characters, [intact]. I'd want to almost make it chapter two of the same movie, if that happens, and just sort of finish the story."

In Land of the Dead, Romero picks up the story of an America overrun with walking dead, which he last visited in 1985's Day of the Dead, the third movie in a trilogy that began with 1968's Night of the Living Dead. In Land of the Dead, Simon Baker plays Riley, the leader of a group of guns-for-hire who help sustain a walled city, one of the last remaining outposts of living humans. Romero says he has ideas for more films using the same characters, which include a feisty female warrior played by Asia Argento.

"I have an idea of ... how to go with it, and I would think of it in my mind as almost one film," Romero said. "If I had to do it like next year. Unless we get nuked or something and there's something else to talk about."

If a Land of the Dead sequel happens, it might affect Romero's ability to contribute a short film to Mick Garris' upcoming Masters of Horror anthology series for Showtime, he added. "If that happens, I may not be able to do the Masters of Horror. And I've been so tied up on this thing that I haven't been able to write a script for it. Mick sent me a couple of scripts. A couple of them are pretty nice. So I'm still hoping that I can get a couple of weeks and be able to do that. But I have a couple of other things that we're working on. Again, everything would get trumped if they want to do a sequel to this."

For his part, Baker confirmed that he's got an option to reprise the role of Riley in a Land of the Dead sequel. Land of the Dead opens June 24.

From Sci Fi Wire