Fangoria is running the news story on their site. The article is kind of amusing the way they seem to be trying to head off any fanboy panic, in what could be the worst news since John, Paul, George, and Ringo went their seperate ways.

The word is that George Romero walked off the set a whopping FIVE HOURS before the film was to be wrapped. Fango reports that later he attended the wrap party in good spirits. Does annybody have a real story about what happened, and if, indeed, it's as bad as it potentially sounds?

Well, if he left the set five hours before they wrapped filming for good, I can't imagine any 2nd Unit guys would have much chance to muck things up in those 5 hours...

BUT, they still have to edit. If Romero does quit before editing, then yeah, this could be bad.

REAL bad.

Vincent

Exactly. Editing is what Romero does best. I'd trust that he can piece together a worthwhile movie, no matter what footage was shot in those five hours. I'm not sure anyone else could pull anything as good together, no matter. I hope he's just back on board and needed to vent one day.

There have been many rumours flying about LOTD. I cannot recall a Romero film having this much gossip. I blame it on a combination of incredible enthusiasm combined with having a major studio involved.

Last news I heard, this week at least, was about that very silly sounding 25 million dollar lawsuit filed by Patriot Pictures against Romero for allegedly backing out of a production with them.

Really, though. While I trust Fango, I imagine it's likely some small incident or maybe that he was done and let someone else finish up. After all, if he came to the wrap party in good spirits.....

It's funny, if we hark back to the CRAZIES commentary where Romero and Bill Lustig talk in depth about Romero's editing style, it's amazing to see how much that style has changed. Seems like his cubist design hasn't been around since... well, CREEPSHOW was the last one that I can recall that was especially striking. His work since then, including the previous DEAD fillm, seemed more routine in style. Well, routine when compared to his earlier pictures. I agree that Romero's editing is as distinctive as Russ Meyer's, and without his input the new film would suffer, but I tend to doubt that the news is as dire as it sounds. Part of me thinks it might be a bid for publicity, but who knows? I can't wait to see it, and hope Romero starts working regular again. We need him!

Without wishing to underestimate Romero's editing skills (and I miss them too), he hasn't officially edited anything since one of the CREEPSHOW episodes, so maybe he isn't as worried about it as we are. I would feel better if Pat Buba was still involved though.

One thing to consider is that Romero's walking off may have triggered the end of filming five hours later. We don't know whether there were fifteen more days to go or not, we only have a timeline that George left and the picture wrapped five hours later. It would be of great consequence if the film wrapped far earlier than it should have! Why he would attend the wrap party afterwards if there were any hard feeleings can be explained: He may have had health problems. If he hadn't submitted for a physical and wasn't covered by insurance, the completion funds could evaporate if he were unable to finish the film, and it's unlikely that production would create a bigger problem for him under those circumstances. This would explain an appearance at a wrap party without animosity. There may also be contractual obligations that prevent anyone else from directing, or completing the film. That means that whatever's in the can is it. Romero's name is more valuable right now than the quality of the film to which that name is attached. In a rush to take advantage of the marquee value of George Romero's good name, an inexperienced producer could allow a set of circumstances that a more experienced producer would not.

Mark:

My point re: if Romero DID quit (and I stress DID because at this point, this is all rumor, and hopefully false rumor at that) doesn't neccessarily have to do with him physically being the primary editor, but with the fact that even when an outside editor "cuts" the film, they do so in extremely close collaboration with the director. There was a great show on I think The Sundance Channel that I happened across the other day, and it dealt entirely with film editing and one of the major points was that of all other crew members, it's the editor who has the most direct collaboration with the director, as whereas during production the director is in charge of a crew of dozens of people plus his actors, in the post-production cutting room, it's usually just the editor and the director sitting in front of that AVID. If Romero walked away before the editing, essentially you're losing the director's voice from the cutting room, and then you just have the editor with a jumbled mass of footage, and who knows who else would suddenly want to step into Romero's place and start imprinting their voice on the footage? It could simply be disasterous, as you can do damn near just about ANYTHING given the appropriate raw footage in the cutting room. The entire tone of the project can be altered.

And Piotr:

There's no way that Romero walking off the set would've led to them shutting down production as a whole early. There's simply too much money involved, and there's no way a film with 15 days to go shooting would have enough material in the can to cut together a coherent narative.

Rather, if this DID happen re: Romero leaving the set with 5 hours to go, it may have simply been him blowing off steam on the final day. If it was a stressful shoot with him battling his producers, he may have figured on that final day, "OK, I'm gonna make a statement", full-well knowing that in the day of the internet, the news would leak that he "walked off" and thus potentially creat sympathy for him and his situation, and also knowing that there was so little left to shoot, that he could safely go back to his trailer without the footage being affected. This seems to be the more plausible scenario- Romero probably did it to make a statement that he wasn't happy with how he'd been treated, and he did it when he knew that his absense from the set for those few hours wouldn't negatively effect the final film.

Vincent

Over at homepageofthedead.com, in the forums under LOTD, there is a response from someone apparently connected with LOTD. They more or less, prettymuch say that Romero walking off the set rumour was way overplayed in the media.


I'll say this: I'd still like to hear a rational explanation over cutting Tom savini's role down so much and why Universal, the distributor, felt this was important enough for them to make that judgement. it just sounds like a very silly decision and I do hope it's not an indication of any furhter silliness.

Plus I kind of doubt they'd throw a party to celebrate the production shutting down before they finished filming... "Yay! Our careers are damaged!"

This all smacks of someone out of the loop on the set seeing Romero leave early and dreaming up a negative scenario.

Vincent: Appreciate the clarification, and agreed that Romero's continued participation would greatly affect the final movie. (I would have hoped he would have approval over final cut anway, regardless of how dirty he was getting his hands with the physical editing.) One of the fascinating things about Romero's commentaries is trying to account for the changes in the style of his movies over the years, for example contrasting the chaos on all of THE CRAZIES with the slicker and more conventional editing of the opening of DAY OF THE DEAD.

As Michael Doherty doesn't appear to be a vastly experienced editor, I'm sure George will be taking a close look at least.

The man's 64. Maybe he just wanted to get in a nap before attending the wrap party that evening.

That said, here's a link to an article by Roy Frumkes who is once again documenting Romero in action, which alludes to some on-set scrambling to keep costs down:

http://www.cinemaeye.com/index.php/weblog/more/974/

Granted 15 Days was just an example, and would likely result in an unwatchable film. but since none of us have seen this film, there is no guarrantee that the film IS coherent. I believe that this film is a Universal Films buy-out, so it is unlikely that they would allow a contract as I had described wherein the film could not be completed by anyone other than George Romero, but the scenario I detailed is definitely a possible series of events. Unlikely, but possible. It has happened before. It all depends on what the contract states. I haven't seen this contract and I doubt that anyone else on MHVF has either, but several of Romero's previous projects were mutually dissolved because he chose not submit for a physical examination (on general principle, which in no way implies ill health) for insurance. If the producers of LAND OF THE DEAD allowed principal photography to commence without getting an insurance bond covering the film's director (which you can't obtain without a physical), they would not be protected if he fell ill. This is a hypothetical situation, but it is a possible situation. If both things happened (illness and an inability to replace the director) then, they would be forced to shut down production, unless they resceived a budget increase to pick-up at a later date with the director's (and casts' consent). Obviously this didn't happen, because they wrapped, and threw a party and everything. That is information that we DO have, but we don't know the actual original wrap date. We don't have enough information to make an informed hypothesis of what happened, unless we know that the true scheduled wrap WAS five hours from when George left the set. We only know that George left, and that production was shut down five hours later. Without qualifying information there is no way to determine if one action caused the other, or if one action merely prefaced another. The amount of money involved doesn't really read into it if the contract allows (or prevents) specific courses of action. While it is true that this would never happen on a View Askew production, every single one of Mark Canton's productions have been troubled (Angel Eyes, Red Planet, Get Carter, Taking Lives... these were all plagued with problems ranging from lost cans of film to decreased budgets -while shooting!- to talent refusing to show for principle and post production). Ditto for Bernie Goldman (Saving Silverman, Taking Lives, Luney Tunes, etc). Peter Grunwald is George's friend, Dennis Jones was only acting as a production manager, and Steve Barnett has never worked in the studio system in a producer's capacity. With this list of principles, it IS a possibility that certain power was conceded to the director. Is this waht actually happened? None of us know, but this is one speculation that could be a reality. I hope this is not the case. I hope that the whole report is hearsay, but if true that the news of early wrap is only being used to lower expectation which is pretty high after an almost twenty year departure from the subgenre that he helped create.

:: If the producers of LAND OF THE DEAD allowed principal photography to commence without getting an insurance bond covering the film's director (which you can't obtain without a physical), they would not be protected if he fell ill. This is a hypothetical situation, but it is a possible situation.

Piotr:

Actually, this CAN'T happen today, not since River Phoenix dropped dead 2/3rds of the way shooting his last film. Since then, the insurance companies have been VERY dilligent in physically inspecting key cast/crew members (i.e. stars and directors) before they sign off on insuring any productions, so your example simply holds no weight whatsoever in the current world of filmmaking at all. If Romero didn't submit to a physical before production, LAND OF THE DEAD would never have been given the green-light to begin with, PERIOD. Films in the LAND OF THE DEAD budget range simply are not shot without insurance, especially if a major studio (i.e. Universal) is involved in a negative pick-up deal like in this case.

Vincent

No offense but this sounds like an irrelevant topic. The film's in the can and hopefully Romero is doing well in terms of health, I think that's all that matters.

Being one of the very lucky few who have seen some of the behind the scenes footage of Land of the Dead I must say the KNB guys did a masterful job with the zombies. I saw one shot where someone was playing with an animatronic zombie and as the camera zoomed in and stayed on that image for about 5 mins. there wasn't a moment when that zombie did not look real! Of course what I saw was unedited HD raw footage, so that tells you a lot about the quality and effectiveness of the effects. If you can look at a animatronic zombie for that long and not see any flaws...that's some damn good work.

Romero did seem a tad tired in some shots but what can you say? That's life. I wish him another hundred years of good health and great films to come.

I'm personally trying to hold back from tearing into and devouring my own flesh in anticipation!

Sal:

That's great to hear! God knows, I was happy with the script drafts of LAND OF THE DEAD I was able to read, and the 88-page late-August draft addressed and fixed about 90% of the concerns I had with the 84-page July draft* I'd previously read, so I'm jazzed :-)

Vincent

* Which I DID have some fairly big issues with, but again, the slightly-longer August draft cleared most of those up in a very efficient fassion.

Not to alarm you Vincent, but Frumkes' article does refer to Romero having to do some cutting and telescoping of the script to meet rising cost demands. Hope nothing essential has been lost.

Jeffrey:

To be honest, my problem with the July draft was a lack of character, not a lack of epic set-pieces. If Romero had to tone back some of the big action scenes a bit, I really won't be bothered. In fact, I did hear that one element of the August draft that got cut...

*SPOILER BELOW*

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... was the "zombie rats" sequence, and quite frankly, that seemed ridiculous when I read it, so I'm glad it's gone. I also don't think it's neccessary to see the zombies underwater, so if that got dropped, it's no big loss, especially since it would just be compared to PIRATES OF THE CARRIBEAN anyway.

Vincent

...or Fulci's ZOMBIE! ;)