Horror pioneer George A. Romero may no longer be with us, but fans of the late filmmaker still have plenty to look forward to. Prior to his passing, Romero had worked on many planned projects, including several screenplays for films that were never produced. His widow, Suzanne, has been actively working to help bring some of Romero’s unseen work to life, and says the filmmaker left behind 40-50 different scripts.
In addition to these unused screenplays, Romero had also been working on a horror novel called The Living Dead. The novel was left unfinished in the wake of Romero’s passing, leading to author Daniel Kraus to step in and complete the story. In a photo posted to his Twitter account, Kraus has announced that he has finished writing the first draft of the book, which will arrive in bookstores in 2020. Better yet, the author also reveals he wore one of Romero’s scarves, given to him by Suzanne, during the course of writing the book. How fitting.
You can take a look at the announcement tweet below.
I have turned in THE LIVING DEAD, the massive zombie epic I co-wrote with George Romero. While writing, I wore George’s scarf, a gift from his wife. ☠️? (June 2020 from @torbooks) pic.twitter.com/QySG1deNVS
— Daniel Kraus (@DanielDKraus) February 19, 2019
The novel takes place across three separate time periods, focusing on the evolution of the zombie apocalypse. As Kraus points out, it would be really interesting to see Romero’s take on a zombie story with this different medium, as it would allow him to do so much more than he could with a budgeted indie film.
“What’s exciting about the novel, though, is how it goes the opposite direction,” Kraus explains. “It’s huge. It’s a massively scaled story, a real epic, the kind no one ever gave him the budget for in film. In a book, of course, there is no budget, and in his pages you can feel his joy of being able, at last, to do every single thing he wanted.”
The Living Dead will be released by Tor Books in June 2020. If you’re looking to kill some time, time travel back to when it all began with the original Night of the Living Dead below.
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