It's been a long time since George Romero released much of anything. Survival of the Dead flopped into (and out of) theaters way back in 2009 - since then, he's been relatively quiet, only making small appearances and cameos on a number of different TV shows and games. It's kind of sad, really: this is the man who redefined an entire genre, and yet, fans haven't seen anything substantial in nearly six years.
The only recent project to bear Romero's name is the graphic novel series Empire of the Dead, published by Marvel comics. Since January 2014, Romero's tale of vampires, zombies and humans has been shuffling along, and the third volume of the collected story is due out later this year. It may not have the same massive following as The Walking Dead, but the series seems to be doing well enough on its own.
In fact, the series is apparently doing well enough to get picked up for a TV series. That's right: in addition to The Walking Dead and its upcoming spin-off, a third zombie television series is on its way.
Demarest Films, the studio behind A Most Wanted Man and Kevin Smith's Tusk, just announced (via Collider) that it has officially acquired the rights for a TV show based on Romero's Empire of the Dead. As it stands, Demarest hasn't announced a timeline for the show - meaning that there's no cast, no script, and more importantly, no release window just yet.
There's also no telling where exactly Empire of the Dead will end up. A show featuring zombies and vampires probably isn't family-friendly enough for network television, but Marvel's had plenty of success with Netflix and Daredevil - perhaps there's a chance fans are seeing Marvel's next big streaming-only project take shape. What has been confirmed is that Romero himself would help write the series, on top of acting as executive producer.
Let's just hope that Empire of the Dead is a bit more successful than Romero's past few movies...
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