George A. Romero will bring us his final Zombie movie... from beyond the grave!
The legendary filmmaker passed away in 2017 after a battle with lung cancer, but he had been working on a script for what was to be the conclusion of a saga that began all the way back in 1968 with low-budget classic, Night of the Living Dead.
Back in 2021, we got word that Twilight of the Dead was officially in the works with Brad Anderson (Session 9, The Machinist) set to direct, and the movie has now cast its leads.
Deadline reports that Resident Evil star Milla Jovovich and Upgrade's Betty Gabriel have joined the project. No details on their roles were provided.
Anderson explained: “I see this film in the same way as successful post-apocalyptic thrillers such as I Am Legend, A Quiet Place, The Road and The Last of Us — genre stories that are as emotional as they are intense. When I first read Twilight of The Dead, I teared up at the end. Which is weird for a film of this type. But it has that kind of pull, that combo of horror and heartbreak that I love.”
George's widow Suzanne Romero has been developing the script with screenwriters Joe Knetter, Robert L. Lucas and Paolo Zelati - who worked on the original treatment with Romero prior to his death - for the past few years.
"I gave [Zelati] my full blessing as long as I could be there every step of the way for it to remain true to George’s vision," said Suzanne Romero in a previous statement. "We had a solid treatment and the beginning of the script. I can 100 percent say that George would be incredibly happy to see this continue. He wanted this to be his final stamp on the zombie genre."
Though Romero helmed 2007's Diary of the Dead and 2009's Survival of the Dead, he never considered them to be part of the same overarching story that began with Night, so Twilight is set to pick up after the events of 2005's Land of the Dead.
"It is no secret that Diary and Survival were not the way he envisioned the series ending and George knew it very well," said Zelati. "Twilight of the Dead was his goodbye to the genre he created and wanted to go out with a powerful film."
We also have our first plot details, with Deadline revealing that the movie will be "set on a tropical island" and will “delve into the dark nature of humanity from the perspective of the last humans on Earth who are caught between factions of the undead.”