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Marvel's EMPIRE OF THE DEAD Coming To TV

 

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Zombie master George A. Romero's Empire of the Dead, a limited comic book series from Marvel, is being developed for TV. Romero was very critical of The Walking Dead in the recent past and now he'll get the opportunity to create a TV show to directly challenge the cable juggernaut.

 

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By Mark Julian - 5/21/2015

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George A. Romero's 15-issue, limited comic book series, Empire of the Dead, is being developed for TV according to Variety. Published in 2014, it is Romero's second comic book after a 2004 collaboration with DC Comics. Split into three, 5-issue ACTS, the third act will conclude the story this August. Romero will team with Peter Grunwald to executive producer and write the series. Demarest's Sam Englebardt and William D. Johnson will also serve as executive producers.

 

Empire of the Dead is an in-continuity continuation of Romero's zombie film franchise and follows the remnants of humanity emerging from the tail-end of the zombie plague only to now be confronted by vampires.

 

A few years back, Romero famously called The Walking Dead "a soap opera with a zombie occasionally." If you're of a similar sentiment, perhaps you'll be eagerly awaiting to see what Romero produces?

Edited by alive she cried
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Uuuugh, of course you didrolleyes.gif

 

The comic is good, the vampire angle sounds hackneyed but it works. Romero's continuing to evolve his creatures and the setting is very similar to Land of the Dead, I find the series weird and interesting and creepy and I really like it. I do wonder if they're going to keep a certain detail though...

Barbara is in the comic, turns out that her brother ended up saving her in the siege because he remembered her.

 

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Yeah, I read the comic, and while it did have some cool elements, I hated every minute of it. I chocked it up to Romero getting old and didn't think much of it. But now they're making a show?! *groan*

 

Definitely not surprised to hear that outta you, the book's gotta be like nails on a chalkboard to you.

 

damn, might have to check out the book now - also what did Romero say about Walking Dead specifically?

 

That's actually specifically what he said. He called it a soap opera.

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Well, it IS a soap opera. Lots of thing are. Claremont's original X-Men run comes instantly to mind.

it's also a pretty good soap opera. The genre is just stigmatized by shit. It's more an observation than an insult. I personally find the human factor in these horror scenarios generally more compelling than the actual spooky monsters anyway.

That said...is Romero still up to snuff for this? The last thing I saw that he did was that found footage ..

of the Dead movie. I don't remember finding it very good.

I did, however, enjoy Land of the Dead much more than the world at large did.

I was not aware that this comic book existed. Or, if I saw it around (which is pretty likely) it didn't resonate enough to keep the memory in my permanent storage.

So, to recap: Baytor think good, Panch think bad. What bugged you about it, Panch?

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To be fair, I think he only watched seasons one and two and they were a lot more soap-operaish (in a negative way) than recent seasons.

 

Survival of the Dead was Romero's last and though it had some dodgy CG and a so-so plot it was pretty good.

 

The gist of Empire of the Dead is that it's a more fleshed-out Land of the Dead. There's a civilization on Manhattan but the upper class are all vampires and there's a group of intelligent dead on the cusp of an uprising, there's also a small army trying to take the city. If you're a zombie purist (Panch) then you'll likely find this sacrilegious, but if you like the way Romero has grown his mythology then you'll likely find this appealing.

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I get that, and I even agree with you for the most part. (This is not me telling you you're wrong, so don't get all snippy with me in reply.)

 

But the thing I admire about Romero is that from the very beginning he's been evolving the monsters that he alone created while everyone else is pretty much dedicated to just remaking Night of the Living Dead in various incarnations with changes in setting and scope. And they're his creations so he has the right to do that if he's inclined. Mostly I appreciate that in spite of the fact that he could just do the same thing over and over again and largely remain celebrated, he continues to try and do something different. And I don't think the fact that the one time he decided to spin his wheels on their growth (Diary of the Dead) is also the worst movie in the series is a coincidence.

 

And I like the way this book has gone, though I hope the show makes the regular zombies more prominent as they've not popped up a lot in 12 of 15 issues. The smart zombies have had a fairly large role, but I think a decent mixture of the old type is necessary as they're still a big part of what makes these stories good.

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Don't get me wrong, Romero is the king when it comes to this genre and I accept his "evolving" "smart" zombies. I don't like it very much (I wouldn't do it if I was a writing a zombie story), but it's him and I accept it. Once you start to introduce vampires and other undead creatures I start to cringe. I'm fine with him writing these stories, of course, but why does it have to exist in the universe of the films? Can't it be something new?

 

I read a free comic book day comic back in the day (Last Blood I believe it was called) that did something I really liked. The "zombies" in the story that were destroying the world were actually feral vampires. So hungry and deprived of food that they became "sick" and started infecting normal people without thought. It became so bad and out of hand that the remaining vampires fought against them to protect the remaining human population. I thought that was a really cool idea.

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I see that too, and I'm not sure how I feel about the whole "vampires also exist" but he handles them pretty soberly. They don't appear to be overly strong, they don't fly, they don't change into animals, they don't burn in sunlight. They're immortal, they can only be killed by destroying the heart (a nice parallel to the zombies), and they drink blood. They're rare and they have to play nice with the humans to keep from going extinct so even if they are in the movie-verse (which, lets be honest, is pretty vague. Crockett ties together Diary and Survival of the Dead and Blades from Dawn appears as a zombie in Land, those are the only links between movies. This is only connected to Night by Barbara's younger sister. Continuity has never been much of a thing with this series.) then they're rare. The bit about how dead vampires also turn into zombies was also pretty cool, I thought.

 

I read the first big arc of Last Blood (it was a webcomic, I don't know if the site's even still up but I read it way back when) and I actually didn't like the whole "zombies are just really hungry vampires" bit because I liked that they were separate creatures so it felt like a cop-out. Joe Hill also has a similar series over at Avatar called Extinction Parade that I've not read, but I've heard is good.

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Nah, it was that they basically starved and their brain turned to mush and they became mindless eating machines. Basically they hungered for blood/flesh but it didn't do anything for them anymore so they just kept eating.

 

Let me know if you get to it. I've got some issues on my computer but I have a pretty big backlog right now and I'm kind of tired of Avatar books.

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  • 5 months later...

AMC might be going the zombie route again with George Romero’s ‘Empire of the Dead’

 

 

Over the past decade, AMC has served up shows about ad men, androids, drug kingpins, computer engineeers, Revolutionary War spies, and cops of all stripes. But no subject has been more reliable for them than zombies. The Walking Dead remains a juggernaut for the network, no matter how cranky viewers get about certain unresolved cliffhangers. So much so that it’s spawned not one but two successful spinoff series, Talking Dead and Fear the Walking Dead.

 

In that light, it’s no wonder AMC seems as hungry for stories about the undead as the undead are for brains. According to a new report, the network’s next venture into zombie territory will be Empire of the Dead, based on a Marvel comic written by the godfather of the zombies himself, George A. Romero. More about the possible Empire of the Dead TV show after the jump.

 

Empire of the Dead artist Arthur Suydam let the news slip while speaking to WHAS11 (via Bleeding Cool) at Wizard World Comic Con Louisville:

 

"The series that I just finished up for Marvel Comics as a matter of fact, so this is me and George Romero… This just got signed to AMC. This is going to be the new big zombie series on AMC, it’s expected to be this one right here."

 

We’d caution you to take the Empire of the Dead TV show news with a grain of salt, as AMC hasn’t announced anything as of yet. Even if AMC has picked up Empire of the Dead, there’s no guarantee a TV series will ever actually see the light of day.

 

between this & Fear, AMC is looking to change their network name to AMZ

 

 

i'm so sorry

 

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