George Romero's 'Empire of the Dead' Heading to TV

By Liezl Dunuan, Christian Post Contributor Friday, May 22, 2015

Another zombie story series is coming to TV soon. This time, it is the "Empire of the Dead," written by George Romero, who is famous for his 1968 movie "Night of the Living Dead," which is considered a "cult classic" and helped define modern horror cinema.

"Empire of the Dead" is a graphic novel series recently published by Marvel Comics and is Romero's most recent work in the horror genre. His last horror movie was part of his "Dead" series, the "Survival of the Dead" in 2009 which is was not as successful as the "Night of the Living Dead."

"Empire of the Dead" is a series about vampires, zombies and humans which has been in publication since January 2014. According to a report in Tech Times, its third volume will be coming out later this year. And most recently, it has been picked up by Demarest to be developed into a TV series. Demarest is studio behind "A Most Wanted Man" and Kevin Smith's "Tusk."

Demarest recently acquired the rights to the TV adaptation of the graphic novel series and made the announcement at the Cannes Film Festival. No other details however have been shared about the TV series' development.

The report also says that a network has yet to be identified but given that it is a show that features zombies and vampires and is not so family-friendly, it may not find itself in any of the regular TV networks. Judging by Marvel's previous success with Netflix, this may very well be its next "big-streaming only project."

The TV series will be written by Romero himself together with his longtime partner Peter Grunwald. Both of them will also executive produce the series together with Demarest's Sam Englebardt and William D. Johnson.

Romero, aside from originating the concept of the zombie apocalypse, is also known for injecting social commentary on issues like corporate greed and terrorism among other themes in his gory horror movies.