On the 16th July, genre cinema lost one of its great pioneers: writer-director George Romero, who brought us such classics as Night Of The Living Dead, Martin and Dawn Of The Dead. Well into his 70s, the filmmaker was still working at a prolific rate; he was reportedly gearing up to find the financing for another horror satire project, Road Of The Dead, about zombies forced to drive cars for the entertainment of the wealthy.
Romero may be gone, but Matt Birman, a filmmaker and stunt coordinator who worked on a number of the late auteur’s movies, has vowed to get Road Of The Dead made – plus four other projects currently at the scripting stage. According to Indiewire, only one of these untitled screenplays is a zombie movie; two are adapted from novels, and the other is an original piece.
When he died, Romero was about to head to the Fantasia Film Festival to pitch Road Of The Dead to financial backers – Birman describes the film as a mix of Mad Max 2, Rollerball and Ben-Hur – and planned to start work on those other projects afterwards.
“I will stop at nothing to get them made! For him and with him,” Birman told Indiewire. “Road Of The Dead now becomes a legacy film. We won’t only be making the film for him, it will also be with him. He will be by my side and in my ear for the rest of my career, I have no doubt.”
More on these Romero movies as we get it.