George A Romero's Land of the Dead Interview Mark Canton (Producer) INTERVIEWER It seems like it was an issue to get this film produced. Why is that? MARK CANTON Not at all. This is probably the easiest movie that I've ever been involved with because it just doesn't happen this way. Having run a studio and having produced a number of movies, I didn't even know about this project until July. It's December 10th and we're already done. I mean, it doesn't happen that way. In fact, I think what did happen was George Romero and Peter Grunwald had a project that they were working on for about a year at Fox Searchlight and were trying to figure out the right situation. INTERVIEWER Is that when you got attached to this project? MARK CANTON No, I just knew George from my days when I was a student at UCLA. George and Dennis HopperDennis in 1968 both ironically made seminal movies, Night of the Living Dead and Easy RiderRider. When I was in school at UCLA, I had a couple of goals.One was to meet Dennis Hopper and one was to meet Jack Nicholson. Over the years I met Jack and we made five movies together. We became great friends. Dennis and I also became great friends, but we never worked together. So I was kind of on a quest to find something to work with Dennis on other than golf. George was a master and I've been fortunate enough to work with a lot of cutting edge and new talent over the years. Then sometimes with the great ones, like Martin ScorseseMarty Scorsese, Francis Coppola,Francis Coppola Steven SpielbergSteven Spielberg and some others, like Tim Burton, who became masters. I didn't know what George was doing. I figured he made very, very inexpensive great movies and he was living in a palace somewhere in Pittsburgh. It would strike me at various times in my career, what was George up to? So we met a few times and it just wasn't the right time for him to do the next or the last in this current series of zombie movies. Then I was in L.A. having lunch with his agent and fortuitously he mentioned to me that George had finished the screenplayFox. I asked if I could I read it? I read it and literally the next morning I bought it.  We announced it and a day later I spoke to Stacey Snider, the Chairman of Universal Pictures and Marc Shmuger, the Vice Chairman of Universal. Stacey and Marc had worked with me at Columbia Tri-Star, and they're the best at what they do. It's that simple. Clearly from what UniversalUniversal did on Dawn of the Dead, they know better than anyone what to do. Marc called me up and said they were going to do this film. I was at the Democratic Convention and other studios were trying to get it, but I wanted to do this all along with Universal, Marc, and Stacey. So we financed it and it happened so fast. It's really kind of legend how quickly we've done this considering that for George it's a very large budget, but for me it's a very small budget. The main thing is George Romero is the master of his own universe and the master of his genre. He invented it, he's an icon. The Shawn of the Dead guys, when they came, that's why they came, that's why they made their movie. Clearly 28 Days Later is kind of an homage as well. The entire genre of horror movies now, Texas Chainsaw, Amityville, the Saw, and The Grudge, they all owe some respect to George. The thing that's wonderful about him is that he's so humble. It doesn't even strike him that way. Then you go on the internet and you see the fanaticism. For me as a producer it's a very exciting picture. It's a very exciting moment, and it reminded me why I wanted to do this. INTERVIEWER What exactly excited you about this project? MARK CANTON I thought the script was great because like all of his other Dead movies, it was really a reflection of the times we live in. They're pinning the morays, humor, and irony in current cultural and social issues. As a kid the second movie I was ever involved with was Caddyshack. I remember the copy line had to do with some people who simply do not belong. I loved that copy. That was the theme of this movie. It's the haves and the have-nots and the way the world is. What I like is when I read the script, it read like Road The Zombie. I thought that was really great because I felt we could do something that hadn't been done, George delivers everything and more. Then I also felt like it's a triangular movie as opposed to two factions. There's the Dennis Hopper character, Kauffman, who is a Wizard of Oz like figure pulling the strings and actually believing he's safe in the Green. Then you have the people he controls inside the city and outside the city are the zombies. So you actually have a collision course from a lot of different directions. It's not just good guys and bad guys. I thought this will be fun, let's just mess everybody up. Also from a standpoint of character, this was a better screenplay than I had read in the genre before. That's now witnessed by the fact that I've currently put together the best cast that has ever been assembled for one of these pictures. First of all, everyone wants to work with George. Second of all, the roles are really good. It's great talent, it's very diverse. Getting Hopper was a great thing, you can feel it on set. Dennis has a great role, he's amazing and this is a great role for him. It was also nice to be the person to introduce these two legendary masters. They had never met before. They're so respectful of each other and their work. Asia Argento is really talented, certainly attention-getting, and gives it that international feeling for us. John Leguizamo is great. When I met John he was one of the funniest guys around. He remains that, but he's just such a damn good actor. I think that his entire acting career now is going to come together, not just with this picture, but with a lot of what's going on. Simon Baker, of course, just starred with Naomi Watts in The Ring sequel. I figured, well that's a good lead in for us. I knew Simon and we were looking for that kind of Steve McQueen kind of anti-hero guy. Simon has a subtlety to the way he acts which I think is very effective. Then we worked hard to cast the zombies. Greg Nicotero is the other thing. So much of the movie is centered around Pittsburgh. George is from the Bronx and he moved to Pittsburgh when he went to school. Bernie Goldmann is from Pittsburgh. Greg Nicotero is from Pittsburgh. Greg actually met George as a student. Their fathers knew each other. Asia Argento's father, Dario, and George are also very connected. So that's interesting too. But Greg gave up doing The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe, this 200 million dollar movie. He told me, if he did this movie, he was going to let someone else do Lion at his company. He really set out to create the best designed zombies we've ever seen. It feels like that's what's going on. That's also the part that's so much fun, the make-up and the artistry. INTERVIEWER Did you feel pressure to make George Romero compromise his vision in order to make it more mainstream for the public? MARK CANTON I wanted to make a zombie movie with George Romero that is his kind of zombie movie. Since there are currently so many imitations in the marketplace, we're betting on having the authentic George Romero.  Universal has been a great partner because they understand that we're going to have in effect, a retro George Romero zombie movie.  He hasn't made one in eighteen or nineteen years and now we have all this new technology, we have all the movie equipment, and all of the artistry in terms of zombies, make-up and creativity that were not possible then. So you're going to have his zombies, they aren't running, they're walking. So it's going to be authentic George Romero with a sufficient degree because it's an interesting attempt on a global basis to market this movie. When he made his first zombie movie it was like thirty-six years ago. So that audience who was twenty then, is now fifty-something, and they still love these pictures. So you go to that audience, then you have the whole new audience that doesn't even know, but they somehow do know. You could see it on the internet, the teenagers all go back. Whenever you go to college you look at Night of the Living Dead. I think we're going to expand the audience and attract today's young audiences as well, in terms of the look and everything. At the same time, we are going to be faithful to what George does. Anyway, you can't change George from being George. Next		Home Interviews Antoine Fuqua Interview King Arthur Interview Arv Grewal Interview Asia Argento Interview Behind the Scenes of "War of the Worlds" Bernie Goldmann Interview Clive Owen Interview Dakota Fanning Interview Dennis Hopper Interview George A Romero Interview Greg Nicotero Interview The Hulk Press Conference Ang Lee Press Conference Ioan Gruffudd Interview John Leguizamo Interview Kathleen Kennedy Interview Keira Knightley Interview