Dawn Of The Dead Blu Ray
Alacoque Whitchurch
Dawn of the Dead is a 2004 action horror film directed by Zack Snyder in his feature directorial debut, with a screenplay by James Gunn. A remake of George A. Romero's 1978 film of the same name, it stars an ensemble cast that includes Sarah Polley, Ving Rhames, Jake Weber, and Mekhi Phifer, with Scott Reiniger, Tom Savini, and Ken Foree from the original film appearing in cameos. Set in Milwaukee, the film follows a group of survivors who try to survive a zombie apocalypse holed up in a suburban shopping mall.
Producers Eric Newman and Marc Abraham developed the film rather as a "re-envisioning" of the original Dawn of the Dead, aiming to reinvigorate the zombie genre for modern audiences. They bought the rights from co-producer Richard P. Rubinstein (who produced the original) and hired Gunn to write the script, which oriented the original's premise around the action genre. Intent on making the remake a straight horror, Snyder took over to direct with the goal of keeping every aspect of the production as grounded in reality as possible. Filming took place from June to September 2003, on location at a Toronto shopping mall that was slated for demolition. The special makeup effects were created by David LeRoy Anderson, and the music was composed by Tyler Bates in his first collaboration with Snyder.
Dawn of the Dead was theatrically released on March 19, 2004, by Universal Pictures. Despite Romero's distaste for it, the film earned generally positive reviews from critics, who saw improvements over the original in terms of acting, production values, and scares. However they felt it lacked character development, was excessively gory and also indifferent to Romero's preoccupation with consumerism. Dawn of the Dead was a commercial success, grossing $102.3 million worldwide on a $26 million budget. Retrospective reviews have called it Snyder's best film. A spiritual successor, Army of the Dead, was released in 2021.
The next day, a delivery truck carrying more survivors enters the lot, pursued by zombies. C.J. and Bart wish to turn them away but are overruled and disarmed. The newcomers include Norma, Steve, Tucker, Monica, Glen, Frank and his daughter, Nicole. Another woman is too ill to walk; she is wheeled inside via wheelbarrow, only to die and reanimate. After she is killed, the group determines the disease is passed by bites. Andre leaves to see Luda, who has kept her scratch hidden from the group. They realize that Frank has been bitten and is a potential threat. After some debate, Frank elects to be isolated. When he dies and turns, Kenneth shoots him.
To rescue Andy, the group straps supplies onto Chips's body and lower him into the parking lot; the zombies have no interest in him. Chips enters Andy's store safely, but a zombie follows through the dog door. Nicole, fond of Chips, crashes the delivery truck into the gun store, where a now zombified Andy traps her. Kenneth, Michael, Tucker, Terry, and C.J. reach the gun store via the sewers, kill Andy, and rescue Nicole. They grab ammunition and go back to the mall; along the way, Tucker breaks his legs, and C.J. shoots him out of mercy. Once inside, they are unable to lock the door, forcing an evacuation via the buses.
While navigating through the city, Glen loses control of a chainsaw, accidentally killing himself and Monica; blood splatters on the windshield, causing their bus to crash. Steve leaves the group and is killed by a stowaway zombie. While C.J., Kenneth, and Terry look for survivors, Ana kills the zombified Steve and retrieves his boat keys. At the marina, C.J. sacrifices himself so the others can escape. Michael reveals a bite wound, killing himself as Ana, Kenneth, Nicole, Terry, and Chips flee on the yacht. Footage from a camcorder found on the boat shows Steve's escapades before the outbreak and concludes as the group runs out of supplies, approaches an island, and is attacked by a swarm of zombies before the camcorder drops.[a]
Additional members of the cast include stuntman Ermes Blarasin as the bloated woman, Natalie Brown as a CDC reporter, and dog actor Blu as Nicole's adopted pet dog Chips.[2][7] Director Zack Snyder cameos as a soldier battling zombies at the United States Capitol during the film's title sequence, as do Scott Reiniger, Tom Savini, and Ken Foree (who were in the original film) as a general, sheriff, and televangelist, respectively.[7]
Plans to remake 1978's Dawn of the Dead were conceived by producer Eric Newman, a fan of zombie films who cited the George A. Romero horror film as the best in this genre.[8][10] With the remake, Newman and producer Marc Abraham wanted to reinvigorate the zombie genre for modern audiences as well as "make the old fans happy and make a lot of new fans".[8] Newman and Abraham bought the rights to Dawn of the Dead from its producer and rights holder Richard P. Rubinstein, who was reluctant at first as he was "concerned that somewhere along the way a studio would sanitize Newman's vision for producing a version with 'attitude'", but that 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'".[8] Newman hired James Gunn to write the script, and the studio brought Gunn in despite not wanting to deliver them a signal idea for the film beforehand. A fan of the original Dawn of the Dead since he was a young boy, Gunn explained that he took the job because he "kind of saw generally what it could be".[19]
The producers conceptualized the remake as more of a "re-envisioning" which would work in some references to the original but would primarily work on its own terms.[8] Co-producer Eric Newman cited Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978), The Thing (1982), and The Fly (1986) as influences on the remake, considering these to be "amazing updates" as well as "great movies that add to rather than diminish the original films".[8] By way of respect to Romero's film, the producers cast the original's Tom Savini, Scott Reiniger, and Ken Foree in cameos; and incorporated visual references to Gaylen Ross and James A. Baffico.[8][b]
In writing the script, Gunn took an action-oriented approach while remaining faithful to the basic premise of Romero's version.[19] To develop the plot, he declined to write a treatment in favor of a discovery writing method whereby he would devise hypothetical situations which would ultimately force the characters to evacuate the mall.[10] Gunn decided to leave the origin of the zombie outbreak ambiguous, believing this would give not only equal consideration to each audience's viewpoint (scientific or otherwise) but also something to think about what they would do if they found themselves in a similar situation.[10] The script was given uncredited rewrites by Michael Tolkin and Scott Frank; co-producer Richard P. Rubinstein said Tolkin further developed the characters while Frank provided some of the bigger, upbeat action scenes.[20] Gunn revealed he received internet backlash over the film due to his past screenwriting credit on Scooby-Doo (2002), believing him to be unqualified for the job.[19] However, film critic Harry Knowles, initially an opponent of the remake, read Gunn's script and gave it a positive response on his website Ain't It Cool News, which Gunn said helped eliminate doubts cast upon him by fans of the original.[19]
With Dawn of the Dead, Gunn wanted to explore the human condition as well as tell a wholly different story about redemption.[19] He elaborated on the redemptive theme of the film in an interview with IGN during a press junket for Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed released that same year:
[...] Dawn of the Dead is about redemption because it's about a bunch of people who have lived certain lives, who have maybe not been the best people, and suddenly they have everything that they've used to define themselves: Their careers, their churches, their jobs, their families are stripped away. They're gone. They start at nothing and they have to become who they really are in the face of all that and some of the people are redeemed and end up becoming good people and some of them are not redeemed and they end up, you know, not redeemed. And that's what kind of drove me throughout the story, was it was a story about redemption. I also think that there's a lot about how people survive and what people turn to in the face of such tragedy. The tragedy in this case being flesh-eating zombies. And really it's a group coming together to work as a community who wouldn't otherwise work together. So there is that foundation of love, that basic message, within even Dawn of the Dead...[21]
Zack Snyder chose to direct the remake as his first feature film because it gave the television commercial director "a reason to care about every shot".[8] Not wanting his version inevitably compared to George A. Romero's, he concurred with the producers on reimagining the latter film as opposed to doing it as a "remake", which, in his view, would have entailed re-shooting Romero's script.[8] For that matter, he aimed to make his film a straight horror that was "as serious as a heart attack"[8] and keep every aspect of its production as grounded in reality as possible.[22] His approach included previsualizing the film with storyboards and introducing the concept of running zombies, which he said was his "fresh, new way" of giving it a sense of verisimilitude and rendering zombies as if they were real threats, especially when they attack in hordes.[8] Snyder maintained Gunn's decision not to reveal the origin of the zombie outbreak, believing it was "obvious that in this fallen society, you wouldn't know where the whole plague started".[23]
In searching for a suitable upscale mall location for the film, production designer Andrew Neskoromny looked for existing malls that were scheduled for demolition.[8] His search yielded no results until he found the now-defunct Thornhill Square shopping mall in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, which measured approximately 45,000 square feet (1.0 acre). Dubbed the "Crossroads Mall", the crew completely redid the mall over an eight-week period, adding an expensive water feature near the entrance, 14 stores, parking structures, and warehouse areas.[8] Since Snyder wanted the stores palpable in terms of design and stood not merely as storefronts, Neskoromny's team accordingly built them as actual retail stores complete with merchandise. These stores were given fake names, since only two major retail brands agreed to be featured in the film.[8][10]
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