Officially announced before the start of the coronavirus pandemic, SYFY confirmed it was developing a TV series adaptation of George A. Romero's Day of the Dead, with Variety reporting that the series aims to premiere this fall. While the pandemic understandably caused a number of complications for the entertainment industry, the production was seemingly insular enough to have been filmed once social distancing protocols were eased later in the year. The series will seemingly embrace the "day" part of the title, focusing on the initial reaction from survivors after a zombie outbreak. Stay tuned for details on Day of the Dead before it debuts this fall.
The series is described, "The intense story of six strangers trying to survive the first 24 hours of an undead invasion. This ode to George A. Romero’s famous flesh-eaters reminds us that sometimes all it takes to bring people together is a horde of hungry zombies trying to rip them apart."
The original film was the third part in Romero's iconic zombie series, which kicked off with 1968's Night of the Living Dead. As each film chronicled a different stage of humanity's attempts to cope with the zombie apocalypse, Day of the Dead focused on a group of soldiers and scientists moving underground in hopes of learning more about their undead foes.
Given that there are some narrative deviations from the original concept, Steven Kostanski, who directed multiple episodes of the debut season, hinted at how the new series honors the filmmaking spirit of the source material.
"Well, I can say honestly that the on-set experience for that show was such a scrappy low-budget adventure that it definitely felt like what I imagined Romero felt like on the '70s movies, where it was a lot of really thinking on our feet and seeing how we can stretch our budget as much as possible," Kostanski Said ."It's a very low-budget affair but we really pushed hard to have as many crazy gags and stuff as possible. I can't explicitly give any details on plot or anything like that. It's not really my place to divulge those secrets just yet, but I can say that I had a blast shooting and I had a great time working with the showrunners. I really feel like we've made something that really captures the spirit of the era of Romero's movies. So I hope people like it."