Diary Of The Dead 2 green-lit

Dreadcentral reports that George Romero has had to cancel his engagement at the Motor City Nightmares convention in Michigan in order to attend a slew of meetings that will fast-track the production of a sequel to his critically-unpopular 2007 zombie opus Diary Of The Dead.

The sales of the recent DVD release have clearly convinced the money-men that Diary could be a viable franchise by itself, and Romero, 68, will have the chance to revisit the initial zombie outbreak a third time (since this territory has now been covered in both Night Of The Living Dead and Diary).

At DoG, we were all a bit disappointed by DotD. Diary seems to me to be more of a franchise reboot than a fifth entry in Romero's Dead cycle, and the rubber-stamping of a directly-related sequel as soon as the first disc-sales figures emerged are an ill-omen for the continuing cynicism of this new thread of Romero's career.

With the characters predictably decimated throughout Diary, one wonders if Romero has in mind the same trick that has been mooted for a Cloverfield sequel: to simply start the events over again with a new bunch of film-makers, perhaps a roaming professional TV crew this time round. I don't believe there was any enormous residual attachment to any of the characters in the original Diary on which to capitalise, so this seems fairly likely...

Dreadcentral

Den Of Geek review of Diary Of The Dead
Den Of Geek review: Diary Of The Dead DVD
The Zombie Movie Ready Reckoner