On the Big Board |
Position |
Staff |
In Brief |
9/16 |
Reagen Sulewski |
Romero takes on class warfare, with typical gorey results. |
29/166 |
David Mumpower |
Big Daddy will endure as one of the most memorable, captivating zombies in film history. George Romero still has it. |
37/85 |
Kim Hollis |
I love zombie movies. |
In Night of the Living Dead, the zombies came out of the earth. The destruction of humankind appeared imminent, even with our eclectic group of heroes, boarded up in a remote cabin, attempting to stave off the onslaught. In the end, this film not only originated and set the standard for the zombie genre, it provided sharp social commentary about the instinct for survival at all costs. It was the beginning of a trilogy for director George Romero
Night turned into Dawn, and Romero moved his series to a shopping mall, the very symbol of greed, affluence and materialism that exemplified the late '70s and early '80s. In this film, a band of survivors of the zombie uprising retreat to the mall in order to protect themselves. Even with locked doors and plenty of places to hide, the zombies keep coming, in part because some residual part of them remembers the shopping center as a place where they frequently journeyed in life.
Dawn slowly dissolved into Day, and the scene shifts to an underground military complex. A group of scientists are working to try to come up with a cure for the disease that has caused so much of the world to become zombified. One scientist even experiments on the zombies themselves - his goal is to see if it might not be possible to tame them. Naturally, the soldiers who occupy the complex want nothing more than to simply eradicate the zombies and are unhappy with the slow progress being made by the scientists. This segment of the story ends in extremely gruesome fashion when the military men discover that their officers are being used to provide food for the zombies.
Now, 20 years after Day of the Dead took gore to new heights, Romero is extending the tale past the original trilogy with Land of the Dead. Events have progressed to the breaking point, and zombies have taken over the world as the dominant species. There are only a few remaining remnants of the human race, and they reside in a walled city that is built to protect them from the creatures outside. Those people who could be considered "wealthy" live in sealed skyscrapers, while the less fortunate are forced to fend for themselves out on the streets. The skyscrapers are protected by a gigantic tank known as Dead Reckoning, controlled by a man called Riley. It's not long before there's an uprising by an insane man who aims to destroy the city with the machine, and he takes it over. Riley must try to save the city even as the creatures outside the city walls are evolving into something even more threatening. (Kim Hollis/BOP)
Comparison films for George A. Romero's Land of the Dead |
Title |
Date |
Opening |
Adjusted Opening |
Screens |
PSA |
Adj PSA |
Total BO |
Adjusted Total |
Mult |
Dawn of the Dead |
3/19/04 | 26.72 |
26.72 |
2745 |
9735.00 |
9735.0 |
58.89 |
58.89 |
0.00 |
28 Days Later |
6/27/03 | 10.06 |
10.06 |
1260 |
7985.00 |
7985.0 |
45.06 |
45.06 |
4.48 |
John Carpenter's Ghosts of Mars |
8/24/01 | 3.80 |
4.05 |
2048 |
1858.00 |
1907.3 |
8.44 |
9.00 |
2.22 |
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