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EXCL: De Soto Talks Night of the Living Dead: Origins 3D

Source:Ryan Rotten, Managing Editor
October 2, 2009


Caught in the confused chaos of the Los Angeles riots of the early '90s, a young Zebediah de Soto witnessed first-hand smoke-filled skies and people in the throes of panic. For his largest endeavor yet, a 3-D CGI Night of the Living Dead film subtitled "Origins," co written by David Schwartz and produced by Simon West Productions, De Soto wants to take those riot images etched into his brain and translate them to the screen. Adding in a horde of ravenous zombies, of course.

"I want to see a helicopter clipping its propeller on a building and careening into a crowd of people. Zombies going through the streets. A thousand people tearing each other apart, zombies tearing them apart, total chaos," De Soto expresses with an air of enthusiasm that is fighting off waves of fatigue from working all night. But wait, helicopters, explosions, and a sea of zombies - this sort of contradicts George A. Romero's original vision put on screen in '68, doesn't it? You bet. De Soto is bringing, to the Dead universe a sense of scope that, he says, has never been seen before in the zombie genre.

"One of the first horror films I owned was Night of the Living Dead, it made a huge impression on me," he explains of the impetus driving the project. "There are all of these interesting little back stories in terms of the other characters, but we only got to follow Barbara in the original. They were always describing these really big scenes, like Ben says a truck is chased down by a horde of zombies. I always wished I could have seen that."

De Soto describes Night of the Living Dead: Origins as an expansion of the original film. A chance to see moments in the undead uprising that were only alluded to, while tapping into the back stories of the main character who have been familiar to us for over 30 decades.

"It's not a prequel," he maintains. "I loved Romero's movie and there are so many people out there raping it to death, I didn't want to be next in line to the gang bang. But I really wanted to do something that was a little creative but an homage to what he was doing. I want to see a zombie movie on the scale of [the Max Brooks novel] World War Z and the only thing I changed in terms of the terrain is that we go into New York City. This is a post-9/11 world we live in and how would people react to this if it really happened? How would they respond? For me, one of the things missing from zombie films is effects done on a level no one has ever seen before like Spider-Man or The Hulk. Those effects applied to a zombie film."

All environments and characters will be created in CG via De Soto and Gus Malliarodakis' New Golden Digital. Asked if he was going for the same motion capture feel of Robert Zemeckis' latest works (Beowulf, A Christmas Carol), De Soto says we're on the right track, however, "it lends itself more to the movie 9 in that I want this to look like a living painting. The only thing that ever came close to that idea is Zack Snyder's 300 but this is a bit more stylized than that. I originally came from comic books and I was a graphic artist for nine or ten years. I always wanted to see something like this."

On the casting front, it appears he has locked Danielle Harris to star as Barbara. For the role of Ben, De Soto has gone out to Mos Def (Be Kind Rewind). "I loved his performance in Monster's Ball he's great in that. His people responded, expressed interest and we sent some numbers to them. We'll see."

Night of the Living Dead: Origins is currently in production with a 2010 release date in mind. Zombie fans will want to keep their eyes peeled to the web as De Soto revealed he wants to unveil a teaser trailer this Halloween. "I know so many people get pissed off about this movie being redone again, but it's not the same regurgitated bullshit. We're taking this seriously."

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Comments

Posted by: Calum on October 2, 2009 at 18:51:25

He seems to contradict himself when he says "effects never seen before, like in Spider-Man and Hulk". Um, those have been seen. By many, many people.

I was interested in this project but this guy sorta sounds like he doesn't know exactly what he wants. Or he does, and he's way too tired to explain it properly, so he just got super excited about the whole thing...

Yeah, I dunno now...maybe a trailer will help me...

Posted by: Ryan Rotten, Managing Editor on October 2, 2009 at 19:29:00

Just to clarify. He's talking about effects never seen before in a zombie film. That's why he says afterward, "Those effects applied to a zombie film."

Posted by: HA HA HA! on October 2, 2009 at 20:41:14

"I loved Romero's movie and there are so many people out there raping it to death, I didn't want to be next in line to the gang bang. But I really wanted to do something that was a little creative but an homage to what he was doing."

That means you are willing to rape the original.

Posted by: Dustin Putman on October 2, 2009 at 21:38:28

30 decades? Wow. Never knew the original "Night of the Living Dead" was released in 1709.

Posted by: Steven Millan on October 2, 2009 at 21:52:38

This sounds so borderline dumb(especially with Mos Def signing on to play Ben)....

Posted by: Autumn Morgan on October 2, 2009 at 22:04:51

Ha ha, you're so right, haha, thats hilarious, hahahaha-**** you.

Posted by: joe asylo on October 3, 2009 at 02:04:09

i hope they based on the 60's that's it came out.

Posted by: Cheesy Burrito on October 4, 2009 at 06:07:17

Dustin, the word you're looking for is Century, not decade.

Posted by: Nick Fury on October 4, 2009 at 18:27:22

Cheesy Burrito...... Dustin Putman was right!!!! 1 decade is 10 years!! 30 decades are 300 years!!! get ur fact right!!!! plus the article never mention century!! 1 century is 100 years....if u say 30 centuries....well do ur stupid math!!!!!!!!!!!!

Posted by: Nick on October 4, 2009 at 21:49:42

A comic series dealing with the events prior to the movie was done in the nineties and it addressed the "origins" of the characters pretty well. All of this that de Soto wants to do does not fit the scenario Romero created with Night. NOTLD was the beginning of the story... why would there be destruction on the scale he wants the very first day? If he wants to do a zombie film, then do one and leave NOTLD out of it. Too many people are taking crappy zombie movies and thinking it'll be good if they slap the name of a Romero film on it.

Posted by: EH25 on December 2, 2009 at 03:23:36

i for a long time really wanted to see a origin based zombie movie.....we only see or hear teasers of what caused the event , but never why , who , what pushed for the need of this gas or plague , all these films that come out now always circle around an event that happen already , I just hope its something like that

Posted by: James on December 2, 2009 at 06:24:47

"This sounds so borderline dumb(especially with Mos Def signing on to play Ben)...."

This is the part that sold me on the project, actually. I think Mos Def is a wonderful actor, and I've watched several movies I would have no desire to see otherwise, just 'cause I heard he was in them.

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