George A. Romero (seen above with zombie James Hetfield and others) is the man responsible for creating the undead zombie sub-genre we know and love to this day with his 1968 classic Night of the Living Dead.
Romero’s vision of zombies—swarms of dead rising from their graves and consuming the flesh of any living soul they can get their hands on—has shown great longevity. There’s been an incredible amount of movies, video games, TV shows, and comics made in the past handful of decades, including the Robert Kirkman comic The Walking Dead, which was of course turned into the hit AMC TV series of the same name.
And so, naturally, it made all the sense in the world to ask Romero if he wanted to make a couple episodes of The Walking Dead, something that would have surely sent geeks into a frenzy. But Romero said no. Here’s why.
Speaking to The Big Issue, Romero was first asked about the ever-thriving popularity of zombies and if he thought that their appeal would ever die:
“Not in my book! Once they bleed out of pop culture I’ll be able to go back and do them again. I don’t want to touch them now. Gosh, they are all over the place. The Walking Dead is the number one television series in the States, World War Z, games, commercials”¦ Ugh! It’s too much!”
Romero was then asked how he felt about it, answering:
“It feels like I don’t have a horse in the race. They asked me to do a couple of episodes of The Walking Dead but I didn’t want to be a part of it. Basically it’s just a soap opera with a zombie occasionally. I always used the zombie as a character for satire or a political criticism and I find that missing in what’s happening now.”
You can click the link above for the rest of the interview.
Would you want to see George A. Romero-directed episodes of the The Walking Dead, or are you happy he turned the offer down?
[Source: via Time]
I have to agree with George. Outside of the occassional zombies, The Walking Dead is a terrible show down to the script and characters. Also I feel like zombies have been over saturated in the mainstream media and entertainment industry.
Comment by Deter Pinklage — November 12, 2013 @ 10:20 am
That’d be a much more awesome picture if it were actually James Hetfield.
Comment by Travis LeBlanc — February 4, 2014 @ 9:37 pm