TV Talk: Making-of ‘Night of the Living Dead’ projects in the works

There are two undeniably popular genres in current Hollywood content creation: Fictionalized accounts of real-life events, popularized with true crime and scammer limited series (“The Dropout,” “WeCrashed,” “The Thing About Pam”), and anything with built-in name recognition (AKA “intellectual property” or IP) and even projects that are IP-adjacent.

So why wouldn’t Hollywood consider a project that goes behind-the-scenes of the making of Western Pennsylvania-filmed, George A. Romero-directed “Night of the Living Dead”? It’s not dissimilar to the recent Paramount+ streaming series “The Offer,” about the making of “The Godfather.”

That’s part of the pitch “Night of the Living Dead” co-producer Russ Streiner said on Wednesday that he and “NOTLD” co-writer John Russo hope to soon make to Hollywood studios.

But they are not alone. On Thursday Deadline.com reported McCandless native Greg Nicotero (“The Walking Dead”) has teamed with Pittsburgh native and entertainment manager/producer Jimmy Miller on their own movie about the making of “NOTLD.”

Nicotero told Deadline he got the idea for the film from hearing stories told about making “NOTLD” at Romero’s memorial service in 2017.

“When Greg Nicotero refers to what triggered the thought in his head about an anecdote he heard at George’s funeral, it was my anecdote he heard that got him started on George’s early days,” Streiner said Thursday after the Deadline story posted.

Streiner said he had spoken with Miller and Nicotero about collaborating.

“We’ve been talking to them for quite a while but we were never able to come to terms because there were never any terms offered,” Streiner said. “We asked them to sign an NDA before they read out scripts which they refused to do and Suzanne Romero refused to do. We have not shown our scripts to any of them.”

The Deadline story reported the Nicotero/Miller project has secured the cooperation of Romero’s widow, Suzanne Desrocher-Romero.

“Is there now going to be a race to tell the Romero story?” Streiner said. “I have to stick by my guns and say John Russo and I and my brother Gary are the only people who are living who created these [zombie] stories along with George. Everything else is speculation and it’s been cobbled together or will be cobbled together out of folklore, bits and pieces that have been picked up from comments Russo and I have made, that George has made. But what we have written are the true stories with all of the nuance that goes into that person-in-the-room perspective.”

A call to Miller for comment was not immediately returned but Nicotero said Thursday night he already had a first-draft of a screenplay for the project by writer Kathy Charles when he first met with Streiner and Russo.

“Russ and John wrote their scripts after I told them of my interest in doing this project,” Nicotero said. “We wanted them as consultants, we wanted them as producers and it’s very possible that it’ll still happen that way. I’ve been pushing this project forward for eight months now. I made the mistake of saying hey, ‘I’m gonna do this movie and I’d love for you guys to consult on or hear your thoughts,’ and then the next thing I know they wrote a script on their own.”

On Wednesday, Streiner said he and Russo have written three distinct scripts. After their first version proved too long, they reworked it into a straight-forward biopic of their fledgling production company and then decided on a third approach that includes the legal story of how the original “NOTLD” copyright was lost by the distributor.

“Then we thought maybe this does actually have some miniseries potential and that aspect is all up in the air,” Streiner said. “We have three complete scripts and still more stories to tell so we’ve decided what we’re going to do is see where we can find a home for this, who we can pitch it to and have a conversation that maybe it is more than an hour-and-45-minute film. Maybe it deserves to be expanded in some way.”

Streiner, now 82 and chairman and founder of the Pittsburgh Film Office board, also played Johnny in “NOTLD” and immortalized the line, “They’re coming to get you, Barbara!” Streiner began working with Romero in the early 1960s and the first iteration of their script chronicles that early partnership leading up to and including making “Night of the Living Dead.”

Global content platforms, especially streaming services, are especially keen to program familiar – so-called “pre-sold” – titles. Less than a year ago, Warner Bros. Home Video released a straight-to-DVD, animated remake of “Night of the Living Dead.”

“The fan base for ‘Night of the Living Dead’ is extensive and it is worldwide so we know there is a fan base out there but what we’ve written does not appeal just to ‘Night of the Living Dead’ fans,” Streiner said. “It’s a David and Goliath story not unlike [the making of] ‘The Godfather.’”

For a villain, Streiner and Russo opted for the naysayers.

“It’s the people saying, ‘You guys will never do it, you’ll never succeed. You cannot make a movie in a place like Pittsburgh.’ We were not deterred by that and ‘Night of the Living Dead’ is the result.”

Streiner characterizes their proposed project as a great filmmaking story and a great Pittsburgh story that’s similar to his Pittsburgh Film Office efforts.

“In 1990 [when the PFO was created] people again scoffed and said, ‘It’s never gonna happen. Hollywood will never come to Pittsburgh’,” Streiner said. “Well, guess what? Hollywood is coming to Pittsburgh and now we’re on the brink of building purpose-built soundstages at Carrie Furnace.”

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