Photo by Nobuhiro Hosoki
Director George A. Romero may have died in 2017, but fans of his work in the zombie genre will be thrilled to learn that his planned conclusion to his classic film series is officially back on track.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, before George’s death from lung cancer four years ago, he had been working on Twilight of the Dead, which was meant to be the final chapter in his decades-long exploration of the undead. His widow Suzanne Romero has been working on the script since his passing and is now preparing to find a director for the project.
The logline for the new film is: “The story is set in a decimated world. Life has all but disappeared. But there still may be hope for humanity.” The treatment was written by Romero with Paolo Zelati, who brought in screenwriters Joe Knetter and Robert L.
Lucas as collaborators with Suzanne’s permission after George died. The plot will pick up where the 2005 film Land of the Dead ended, focused on zombie leader Big Daddy, and not address the two subsequent installments George also directed, Diary of the Dead in 2007 and Survival of the Dead in 2009.
George made his feature directorial debut at the age of only twenty-eight with the groundbreaking Night of the Living Dead in 1968, which is considered one of the most influential zombie films and achieved cult status. A sequel, Dawn of the Dead, was released in 1978, followed by Day of the Dead in 1985 and the three other films in the series mentioned above. George also wrote a remake of the original film that was released in 1990 and directed by Tom Savini.
Regarding Zelati and his partners continuing her husband’s legacy, Suzanne expressed that “I gave him my full blessing as long as I could be there every step of the way for it to remain true to George’s vision. We had a solid treatment and the beginning of the script. I can 100 percent say that George would be incredibly happy to see this continue. He wanted this to be his final stamp on the zombie genre.
This is the film he wanted to make. And while someone else will carry the torch as the director, it is very much a George A. Romero film.”