Some things don’t need a remake, a reboot (soft or full), or in this case another one in a long line. Sometimes they should just “let sleeping corpses lie,” so to speak, but Hollywood can’t help themselves, so another Night of the Living Dead is on the way, and perhaps with a twist.
Tackling the monumental, and endless, task of keeping George Romero’s legacy alive (or undead) is writer LaToya Morgan (Into the Badlands, Turn: Washington’s Spies). Initially, she didn’t want the job, as she explained to Screen Rant.
“I actually said no several times because I revere it so much. It’s like one of the cornerstones of horror…” Morgan said. “There’s certain titles you don’t touch, but his family, they asked me to rewatch the movie and to see if I could come up with anything.”
She added, “And the idea sparked, so I was like, ‘Oh no, I got to do this now.’ So I pitched it to them and they really loved it… And so now we are at Amazon MGM, and hopefully there’ll be a movie soon.”
The film was announced in 2022 and Morgan says the script is finally done, but they are only close to entering production. “We have a wonderful director who’s attached, and we are very close to getting it there, so I can’t say fully, but we are getting close,” she said.
The director is Nikyatu Jusu who burst onto the scene in ‘22 with the indie psychological horror Nanny which stars Titans actress Anna Diop.
“The original version of Night of the Living Dead is still so resonant to this day,” Jusu said to Deadline at the time. “Every era has the zombie that it needs and right now, zombies reflect the ways that humans treat each other and show us who is truly the monster.”
The late Romero’s ex-wife Christine Forrest Romero is overseeing this Night and is excited to see what the team of Jusu and Morgan put together.
Forrest remarked to Deadline, “I am so excited by this visionary team of storytellers that have come together to expand on the premise of the original film. Revisiting the world that George and his collaborators created is going to be a treat for fans. George would have been so happy to see this happen!”
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Night of the Living Dead (originally titled Night of the Flesh Eaters) released in 1968 and almost immediately broke ground in two ways. It reinvented the zombie into the undead skin munchers we know today, and it was one of the few movies remarkable for its Black lead (Duane Jones) at a time when segregation was still being – shall we say – dismembered.
The female tandem of color in Jusu and Morgan reinterpreting Romero for a modern audience (and all that entails) may do so by leaning harder into the racial element that was most prominent in the first film compared to the rest. LaToya Morgan also created the Max show Duster alongside JJ Abrams. We’ll have to see if he has an influence on her zombies.
Romero stood to make millions off Night of the Living Dead, but didn’t due to an unfortunate copyright issue. Still, it launched his career and spawned several sequels, spinoffs, and remakes of every series entry. The original was reimagined once before in color in 1990 with Tony Todd in the Duane Jones role and effects wizard of gore Tom Savini in the director’s seat.
A second remake followed in 2006. Although in 3D and co-starring Sid Haig, fans didn’t show up in hordes like the living dead to sink their teeth into it.
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