Greg Nicotero Is Developing a Film About the Making of George Romero's NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD
The Walking Dead’s Greg Nicotero and his Monster Agency Productions are teaming up with producer Jimmy Miller to make a film about director George Romero’s 1968 classic Night of the Living Dead. The film was made on a $15,000 budget, and it launched the zombie genre as we know it.
Nicotero has a great resume of films and TV shows that he’s worked on over the years, and he actually worked with Romero on several of his films. He met Romero when he was only 15 years old. Nicotero explained that the idea for the movie came after he attended a memorial for the late Romero. While there he listened to Romero’s old friends swap stories about the making of his classic zombie movie. Nicotero said:
“They really had no experience. One of the actors was the makeup artist. It was this bunch who’d shot a couple commercials, sitting around saying, hey we should make a movie. And someone in the group said, yes, ‘let’s make a horror movie. They always make money.’ I love that spirit of a group of people getting together who had no real idea what they were doing and fumbling their way through.
“They found this rickety old farmhouse in Pennsylvania. One of the interesting things to me is, when you watch the movie, it has this sense of film noir because of the way the lighting is. A lot of that is, they just didn’t have money to afford a lot of lights. So they created a very unique lighting style for a lot of scenes, which played into the motif of what Night of the Living Dead is about. Even when they struck the prints to distribute, they used cheap film stock, so there was a lot of contrast. Everything that was black went black and everything white went really white. That added to this weird noir film vibe of, what’s going to come out of the darkness and get me? It was a perfect storm of events with a group that loved working together and rolled up their sleeves.”
Nicotero also talked about Romero’s style and personality, saying, “He would wear a cape to go out with friends, dressed as Zapata from Viva Zapata, and he had no game with the girls.”
The filmmaker ended up getting the rights they need to make the film and they’ve been working directly with Romero’s widow, Suzanne DesRocher-Romero. They are currently looking for a writer to take on the project. As for the tone and style of the film, the plan is to make is an Ed Wood-style movie. He explained:
“What I want to do is an Ed Wood-style movie that shows the heart and character of this guy, with the backdrop this Magnificent Seven version of a bunch who had no fucking idea of what they were doing, getting together to make Night of the Living Dead.”
Nicotero will recreate scenes from the original film and shoot them in black and white, but the rest of the movie will be in color and explains that “you have to be able to see things like how they melted chocolate to serve as the blood.”
It’s then explained how Romero ended up being screwed over in the end due to a mistake that was made. I’ve never heard this before, but Nicotero explained what went down, saying:
“Here was the rub. They changed the title at the last minute. Originally the movie was called Night of the Flesh Eaters, and at the last minute they changed the title to Night of the Living Dead, which they inadvertently left off the copyright. Only after Night of the Living Dead was released did they realize it wasn’t copyrighted and that’s why there were so many versions of it out there available on DVD. They went to court with the Walter Reade Organization, which left the copyright off. So George’s first foray into the film world was rife with copyright lawsuits, which they lost. I believe that had that been copyrighted, George’s career would have gone in a completely different direction. But he was a slave to a clerical error that cost him millions and millions of dollars.”
When talking about Romero’s talent, skills, and motivation Nicotero said that he put “George in the same category as Tobe Hooper, or Wes Craven, these young maverick renegade filmmakers who were bucking the system.” He added:
“Back then they said, ‘you can’t show that, it’s too gruesome.’ Or, ‘you can’t show that, it’s offensive.’ Meanwhile, with the time period, and the US being at war and the social upheaval, they were like, you can’t tell me what I can show. I’ll show whatever the fuck I want to show. The result of that was Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Night of the Living Dead, The Last House on the Left, The Hills Have Eyes, all these really stark, horrific horror movies. George was one of the first people to buck the system. When people said, you’ve got to move to California, you have to be in Hollywood, he said, ‘No I don’t. I have Hollywood right here.’ He was loyal to his crew, to his town, and he continued to make all of his movies in Pittsburgh. That was another way of George saying, I’ll do things the way I want to. Jimmy and I wanted to celebrate him, and also our home in Pittsburgh where he made his movies.”
I’m excited about this project! Night of the Living Dead is one of my favorite horror films, and it’ll be a lot of fun to watch a movie that explores the making of the zombie classic. There’s no better person to do that than Greg Nicotero.
Source: Deadline