Postby Danny » 21 years ago
Yeah.. the 'Return' series was actually a sort of cross between unofficial sequels (similar to the Universal Soldier series) and parodies of the original Night of the Living Dead movie.
Romero never really intended to make the dead trilogy, but he was VERY unimpressed wit hwhat was planned for these 'return' movies, so he made his own set of sequels.
Note, however that the 'return' movies are the 'official' sequels and the romero ones are the 'true' sequels.
How is this possible?
Its all to do with ownership. Night of the Living Dead as a property at the time was owned by the studio. Therefore Romero has no say in what was done with or to it. Romero as a movie maker, however, can to whatever he damnwell likes, so he made his own 'independant' sequels.
Note that Romeros second and third installment in the 'trilogy of the dead' are called
Dawn of the Dead
Day of the dead
Notice there is no 'LIVING' in those titles??
however.. the studio sequels..
Return of the Living Dead
Return of the Living Dead Part II
Return of the Living Dead Part III
The studio refused to release the title you see, so Romero just dropped the 'Living' from his movies and there wasnt a thing the studio could do.
Also note the numbering system of the studio movies. The THIRD movie is RETURN II, the FORTH movie is RETURN III..
Their copyright ran out and Romero bought it back.. so the studio could no longer make sequels to the ORIGINAL movie NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, but they could so whatever they liked with their own sequel.
And just to make it even more confusing.. Romero no longer holds the rights to the DEAD series!! It is now owned by John Russo et al.. the team that Romero made the original movie with. There is no animosity or cross purposes there tho. In fact when Russo brought the rest of the original team back together for the '15th anniversary' reshoot fo the original movie Romero was in fact involved in this reshoot in the early planning stages, but had to pull out of his commitment due to him being involved in the making of another movie called RESIDENT EVIL.. Doh!!
Don't you just love Hollywood politics?
three and a half years.. for what?