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About The Production
For the most part, the filmmakers and many of the talent behind Dawn of the Dead shared the same kind of single-minded drive as the ever-growing horde of living corpses at the center of their film. The zombies on-screen just want to feed; those involved in this Dawn just wanted to make a zombie movie.
A longtime fan of horror films and the “not-quite-dead” sub-genre, producer Eric Newman remembers, “Growing up, I had always loved those movies, but Dawn of the Dead was my favorite. There were always other zombie movies around, but Dawn felt to me like the one movie that stood out from the rest. I feel that the genre has not received the attention it deserves in this generation.”
What Newman wanted to do was bring the zombie movie into the 21st Century with a quality script, a talented and respected cast and up-to-date production values provided by a Hollywood studio.
Commenting on the unkillable nature of the genre, Newman observes, “Zombie myths are thousands of years old. It’s almost a vampire thing. Plus, zombies were also, for me, the perfect villains because they were fearless, tireless and ubiquitous. They were singular of purpose—to stalk, kill and eat you. You can’t reason with a zombie. People have always struggled to maintain their individuality against
those who strive to crush it. Zombies are the mindless masses who forcibly convert you to their way of life.”
Newman’s zombie fever quickly spread to respected, veteran producer, Strike Entertainment’s Marc Abraham. It was then that Newman (on behalf of Strike) approached New Amsterdam Entertainment CEO Richard P. Rubinstein, who was the producer of the 1979 original, George A. Romero’s Dawn of the Dead, and controlled the remake rights.
The original Dawn was nationally distributed in 1979 without an MPAA rating by a small independent distributor, earned over $20 million at the U.S. box office and was highly praised by many critics, including Pulitzer Prize-winning Chicago Sun-Times’ Roger Ebert, who gave the film four stars.
Rubinstein had previously been approached over many years by filmmakers wanting to secure the rights for a remake, but it wasn’t until Newman approached him that he began to consider granting the rights…and even then, not at first.
Rubinstein comments, “I believed that George’s film was successful critically and financially partially because it was written, directed, produced and distributed outside of the major studio system of moviemaking. I was concerned that somewhere along the way a studio would sanitize Newman’s vision for producing a version with ‘attitude.’ Ultimately, it was Marc Abraham’s long track record
in keeping the creative integrity of the studio distributed films he has produced intact that gave me reason to say ‘yes’ and agree to turning the Strike team loose.”
Eric Newman adds, “I would like to see this movie make the old fans happy and make a lot of new fans. Because that’s the only reason we are doing it.”
One idea proved to be the cornerstone for all, an overall dictum the production would follow in every aspect of the project.
“This is a re-envisioning of a classic. There was not, is not, a valid reason to ‘remake’ Dawn of the Dead. That’s not what we set out to do, not what any of us wanted. There are some amazing updates on some great films—I love Kaufman’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Carpenter’s The Thing, Cronenberg’s The Fly. They’re great movies that add to rather than diminish the original
films. We really saw this as a chance to continue the zombie genre for a new audience,” offers Newman.
Producer Abraham says, “The 1979 Dawn is obviously a cult film, revered by its fans and rightly viewed as a landmark in horror films. We believed we could bring the same intense kind of motion picture experience to a whole new audience of young moviegoers who probably hadn’t seen the original, and we would use all of the prevailing technology to do so.”
Rubinstein agreed with Newman and Abraham that a new Dawn would benefit from a more expansive production, utilizing the latest film technology and special effects makeup. “We all agreed that several of the underlying themes of the original movie, such as the group-versus-the-individual and rampant consumerism, still had substantial relevance in today’s world. The question for the screenwriter was how he could keep
certain original elements, while updating them for today’s audiences.”
With Rubinstein onboard as producer, the team turned to another zombie movie fan to adapt the screenplay, screenwriter James Gunn, who had risen through the ranks of famed low-budget studio Troma Entertainment and had previously penned the cult hit Tromeo & Juliet.
“James had approached me early when I was researching the project, and was chomping at the bit to write the script,” recalls Newman. With Rubinstein’s approval, Gunn was onboard.
“I was an enormous fan,” enthuses Gunn. “I’ve seen the original many times. For me, it was the first time a horror movie addressed social concerns and still was a kickass horror movie. Aside from that, after having written comedies for the last few years, I wanted to shift from making people laugh to making them scream, cry and get queasy.”
Producers Newman and Abraham had put Dawn of the Dead on Universal Pictures’ radar and it was with Gunn’s draft that cemented the studio’s interest. With a completed script and an eager studio, the producing team’s next job was to find a director that best suited the project. Currently one of the commercial industry’s hottest director/cinematographers, Zack Snyder was looking for the right script
to make his feature film debut. When Dawn of the Dead crossed his desk, Snyder knew he had found his film.
A fan of the original movie as well as a comic book and horror film enthusiast in his youth, Snyder could imagine nothing better than having zombies starring in his first feature film. He explains, “I’d been looking for a project to direct as my first feature film, and I wanted something that gave me a reason to care about every shot. Dawn did that.
“The most important aspect for me was that this movie had to be as serious as a heart attack. It needed to be played straight—I mean, we do have some dark humor and some veiled references to the original. Don’t get me wrong, this is a frightening film, but it also has some really funny stuff…some sick humor, if you will,” comments the director with a smile.
The filmmakers’ respect for the original also extended beyond the visual references and led to cameo appearances by original Dawn cast members Ken Foree and Scott Reiniger and makeup effects man and cast member Tom Savini.
“Zack’s enthusiasm for the project was infectious—sorry for the pun,” says Newman.
In particular, Synder’s detail-oriented preparation scored high with producer Abraham, who observes, “Zack had a very specific vision of the film and storyboarded the complete picture himself. We wouldn’t have landed our great cast if he hadn’t been able to talk about the movie in such a confident and original way.”
Synder echoes the producers when he explains, “I had no desire to remake the picture. A remake, to me, is you take the script and you shoot it again. And that can be cool, but you don’t mess with it. A re-filming of the original version was so not needed. Reinterpretation is what we wanted to do. Re-envision it. We put some steroids into it. I don’t want to have this film compared to any other—our Dawn
is it’s own thing with it’s own personality, voice and experience.”
All parties agreed that when it came to casting, it was essential to secure talented actors. “My experience producing Creepshow and Pet Sematary taught me that good writing and acting may even be even more crucial in a ‘popcorn’ move than in a serious drama—that’s why we put so much effort into the script and into finding the right actors,” states Rubinstein. “We had a ‘star’
in the title of the movie, and we hired based on talent and suitability for the roles.”
About The Characters
An admired and versatile actor known primarily for her subtle performances in largely independent films, Sarah Polley’s interest in the role of Ana Clark, a nurse who is the moral compass of the group, surprised even her agent.
“This was the last thing she would expect me to be interested in,” offers Polley. “But I loved the idea of it. I loved the original movie and when I met Zack and Eric I loved them. They had great ideas for the film and they knew that for the drama to work, this outrageous scenario had to be taken seriously. In horror, we’ve gotten used to it being very tongue-in-cheek, and the sense that the actors are
in on the joke. I think it’s very brave, what Zack and everyone want to do. It takes a lot more balls not to be in on the joke.”
Snyder was well aware of Polley’s customary film choices, and was thrilled when she came onboard. “Sarah sells the movie. As an actor, she is totally committed and her belief in the situation is palpable—and once she’s on-screen, the audience cannot help but believe it as well.”
Another reason that compelled Polley to take the role was something she usually kept secret. She explains, “I have a zombie fascination. I’ve always had it, I guess since I was a little kid. Part of it for me is the whole idea of what happens after you die, if death isn’t permanent, if it’s only a half-death and your body still lives. A lot of the games I played as a child had to do with zombies. Plus
I loved Romero’s films.”
Since this was her first action film, Polley had not considered the amount of physical effort that it would require. “About one week into shooting, it occurred to me that I have never run in any of my other films, not once. And in this film it seems to me all I do is run,” she laughs. “It’s really rare to have a film where the female character is anything more than somebody screaming and running away,
so it’s great that Ana is someone who, despite what she goes through, takes charge and holds her own.”
But Ana’s fight against the zombies isn’t, for the most part, a lone one. After her first near-deadly encounter with two plague victims (a neighbor and her newly-converted husband), Ana meets up and joins forces with Kenneth, a police officer whose family has fallen victim as well. Disillusioned but still a man of duty, Kenneth’s single aim is to find his brother. And from the beginning, filmmakers wanted
only Ving Rhames to fill the role of Kenneth.
“For Kenneth, you want an enormous type of strength, an internal strength, slightly taciturn, somebody who can convey a lot without having to talk a lot. And even though he’s big and tough and fierce, you feel you could count on him in a bad spot,” states Abraham.
Known for his stellar work in dramas, such as Rosewood, as well as in more action-packed fare, such as Mission: Impossible and Con Air, Rhames was lured to the project by Gunn’s script…but what hooked him was Zack Snyder’s reel.
“I think Zack is turning out to be a dynamite feature director. He is a director that says a lot with the camera. When I’m looking at a filmmaker’s work, I like to turn down the volume and see if they can tell a story without hearing the dialogue. Zack’s reel was made up of commercials, but he still told a story,” Rhames explains.
Glad to be in the company of such a varied group of performers, Rhames comments, “Our cast has accomplished actors, because it’s not just a ‘horror movie’—it’s a story where you care about the people in it. There are all kinds of different actors in the group—it’s almost like painting a portrait, and every color brings out a different character. In a way, it’s like the group
that ends up in the mall, where we realize that if we’re going to survive, we have to all work together, no matter what our differences.”
When casting the role of Michael, the salesman with concealed but valuable strategizing and combat skills, the filmmakers sat through numerous auditions where many actors chose to give the character more of a hard edge. “When Jake Weber read for the part, he brought to the character an empathetic quality we hadn’t seen,” recalls Abraham. Weber just loved the fact that Michael’s “just a regular
guy who sells TVs for a living…and then he wakes up one morning to find the world has gone mad and he has a strange aptitude for coping in the most dire circumstances.”
The actor recalls his first meeting with the filmmakers as “serendipitous…we were finishing each other’s sentences by the end of it. What interested me about Michael was how he realizes what he’s capable of, the level he can rise to when suddenly confronted with this—there’s no other word for it—this war. He fights to preserve the last vestiges of humanity in an insane world, and it
totally surprises him, this newfound talent, as he realizes that the only alternative to cowardice in this unreasonable situation is courage.”
“If Ana is the heart and moral center of the group then Michael is the conscience, caring about the group practically,” adds Snyder.
One of the roles the filmmakers considered most challenging was Andre, a streetwise husband who is trying to do right by his pregnant wife. “He is guy who in this situation finds himself asking the big questions…like is there a hell? And he realizes that if there is, he may very well be going there. So he sets a course for redemption and in doing so, lies to the group and pays a steep price for it,” says Newman.
“We needed a great actor who could embody that turmoil and Mekhi Phifer is the real deal,” adds Snyder.
Known for his roles in a variety of films and as Dr. Greg Pratt on the hit series ER, Mekhi Phifer drew warranted critical attention with his moving portrayal of Future in 8 Mile. No stranger to horror films (having starred as Tyrell in I Still Know What You Did Last Summer), Phifer was not primarily interested in the horror elements of the film.
Phifer explains, “While, yeah, there are zombies in this movie—and freaky ones at that—most of the time they really are a backdrop to the very human story of what goes on within the group of survivors. No offense to James Gunn or Zack or the producers, but you could replace the zombies with anything that people would be hiding from. But whatever it is, and in this case it is zombies, it forces the characters
into a confined space and it forces them to deal with themselves and each other. That is what really drew me to the project.”
Phifer was also glad to work in the company of his co-stars, who were amply suited to bring this character-driven horror film to the screen. He continues, “I really enjoy working with this cast, particularly Ving. We have a poignant scene together, where I’m really thinking about all of these issues that have come up because of this insane life-and-death situation…like what happens when you die? Is there a
heaven or hell? And I turn to him.”
Rounding out the exceptional and varied cast are such actors as Ty Burrell, who plays Steve, a successful businessman with a cynical streak; Michael Kelly as CJ, a mall security guard who finds his power usurped; Kevin Zegers as the younger security guard Terry; and Lindy Booth as Nicole, a later addition to the mall survivors. With a tipping of the hat to the original Dawn of the Dead, filmmakers were also able to cast actors
from the original production for cameo roles: seminal makeup artist Tom Savini is the Sheriff; Scott Reiniger, who starred as Roger DeMarco in the original, is the General; and Ken Foree, who starred as Peter Washington, plays the Televangelist.
About The Makeup
Filmmakers keen on re-envisioning a classic are also aware that the semi-dead of three decades ago would hardly be considered as menacingly adversarial today. With new times come new zombies. And just as Snyder approached this Dawn in a “fresh, new way,” he and Gunn imagined their post-plague world with zombies that “needed to be a real threat—you just can’t walk right by them. When our dead walk, you run.”
In 2004, zombies are quick and supernaturally strong, with the single-minded killing drive of a shark that smells blood in the water. And once a human is bitten and dies, the transformation into one is nearly instantaneous with death. So the numbers grow exponentially as more humans succumb.
“Zombies are cool, and our zombies are really cool,” continues Snyder. “They act like a pack—very wolf-like, which is important in order for the audience to buy this ride. They have to believe the zombie threat is real—that if you confront a zombie oneon- one, you may be able to escape, but against more than one, you’d better run. There’s never really a chance of winning…if you’re
lucky you’ll get away in one piece.”
To create the look of this new zombie breed, filmmakers turned to two-time Academy Award®-winning special effects makeup designer David LeRoy Anderson.
The director reasons, “I didn’t want this film to be a CGI freakout. From the beginning, I saw this as a makeup effects movie.”
After filmmaker meetings, Anderson had the relatively brief span of four weeks to put together his designs and his team. “There are fanatics about this particular genre in my industry and I knew I would have no problem pulling together a team,” says Anderson.
In his designs, Anderson lifted both from nature (he and his team scoured forensic books and crime scene photos) and traditional zombie mythology (primarily from African and Latin American lore) to create an appearance of death and decay. The goal for all was the replication of what actually happens to the human body the days/weeks/months following death—whether animated or not. “We wanted to create zombies based
on absolute reality—the color schemes are real, the look of decomposition is real—it was all about keeping it real.”
It was decided that a zombie’s deterioration would progress over the weeks of the mall siege, with the legions becoming more and more decomposed over time. For makeup and continuity purposes, Anderson broke decomposition’s degrees of decay down into three stages.
Anderson explains, “The first stage looks like someone who was just in the ER— pale, with lots of fresh blood. The second stage has moist wounds but the skin is beginning to break down. There is a lot of discoloration and mottling, mostly blues and greens. The third stage is the most intense, with the skeletal form coming through. The wounds are dried-up, the skin is sloughing off and colors are oily blacks.”
When it came to creating this frightening look, Anderson and his crew used all the tricks of the trade. “Since the original film, the industry has obviously developed a lot of new techniques and materials…and we are using a lot of them. However, it is still the same fear factor as before, it is just that now, we are able to make things that look more real—like something out of a morgue or a huge, possibly
wartime disaster.”
The artists were just as particular about the blood as they were about the makeup used during the three stages. There was a standard red or normal-flowing blood for the first stage; a browner, drier version for stage two; and a blacker, oilier blood for the third stage. Where the blood would be applied was also a factor (in an around the mouth as opposed to the type intended “for external use” only), in addition
to the state of it (free flowing versus clotted versus dried). So much of it was required on any one shooting day that production actually constructed a blood cart for transporting the buckets of the stuff to the set.
In addition to setting the bar high for him and his crew, Anderson was also confronted with the challenge of creating hundreds of zombies (from the hundreds of willing extras) by the time the first cameras rolled nearly every day of shooting. On certain days when the decaying masses required for filming swelled to top numbers, as many as fifty makeup artists were working to apply the gore and blood to the actors. By the end
of production, a staggering 3,000 zombie makeups had been completed.
The filmmakers and cast could not have been more impressed with Anderson’s zombies. Rhames recalls, “What I really liked was that Dave kept a human element to our zombies, which made it all the more disturbing when it came time to try and kill them.”
“It was incredible,” comments Polley. “To be brutally honest, there were times when I’d look at them, particularly up-close, and I’d be hit by a wave of nausea—that is how repulsive they looked.”
“Yeah, you could almost smell the rot,” adds Snyder. “It was terrific.”
About The Location
Keeping true to the original production of Dawn of the Dead, our characters find refuge in a suburban mall. While working on the 1979 version, Romero and his crew had to shoot during a window from midnight until 6:00 a.m. every morning in a functioning Pittsburgh mall. To replicate this shooting schedule would have been impossible for the filmmakers, crew and cast. So location scouted the 20-year-old Thorn Hill Square shopping mall slated for demolition in Toronto, Canada.
Production designer Andrew Neskoromny (who had been researching different malls not only in North America but also in Japan and the U.K.) had only eight weeks to take this location (“…that had the ambience of a bus station,” recalls Abraham) and turn it into an upscale suburban Mecca called Crossroads Mall.
“In many instances, we merged a variety of aspects of different designs we saw to create one superb mall, a modern-day shoppers’ paradise,” states the designer.
In order to accomplish this, the approximately 45,000-square-foot location had to be stripped down to its steel support beams and completely remodeled. The resulting “mall” included a welcoming common area (with high-dollar water feature); 14 fully functioning, individually designed stores; an open-concept coffee shop/bookstore; and parking structures and warehouse areas.
Snyder was particularly impressed with Neskoromny’s attention to detail and his ambition to create a high-caliber set. “Andrew was always looking to take things one step further. If we talked about one design, he’d always come back and ask, ‘What if we take it a step further and do this?’ My reaction was always, ‘Great!’ I loved how much thought and effort went into his work.”
Neskoromny explains, “Zack and I worked closely together. He had very specific ideas and requirements about what he needed for shooting in the mall. So we talked about all the stores and went through all the sketches. We discussed materials that would work well for lighting and for the camera. It was a completely collaborative process.”
While some of the retail businesses approached were reticent to participate in the production, three stores were glad to have their outlets in the fictional Crossroads Mall. Producer Abraham says, “Nike, Panasonic and the clothing store Roots stood up and said ‘Hey this is cool. This is something we want to be apart of.’”
To fill the other spaces, Neskoromny and his crew created their own companies with names like Reflex Sports, Case Hardware, RPM Records, Concepts, Hallowed Grounds Coffee Shop—along with Wooley’s Diner and a clothing store called Gaylen Ross as tiny tributes to the 1979 film (Gaylen Ross was the actress who played Francine and Wooley was the character name of actor Jim Baffico).
“Andrew has done a brilliant job, these are not just the storefronts. We had to shoot inside all of these places so they all had to be completely finished, down to the last detail and fully stocked,” comments Abraham. “And he pulled it all off in eight weeks.”
Principal photography on Dawn of the Dead began June 9, 2003, and wrapped September 6, with a majority of shooting taking place during the day (with some additional nighttime second-unit lensing of the zombie crowd exploding the bus). Some locations in and around Toronto were utilized (zombie devastation on Cherry Street, the interior of the gun store, Ana and Luis’ suburban neighborhood), with most filming taking place
inside/outside of the newly created Crossroads Mall. |
