Just now seeing this, but it seems a couple of interesting tidbits came out of George A. Romero's Wizard World St. Louis Q&A last week:
1. Nobody will make his Stephen King movie adaptations
“…we haven't been able to sell 'The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon' to anybody. I have been working on that, and recently wrote another draft of that, but nobody wants to do that. We can't get anyone interested. That and 'Gerald's Game.' Those are the two I was interested in, but we can't get anyone.”
King and Romero famously collaborated on a number of films and TV shows back in the '80s and early '90s, including the 1983 anthology classic “Creepshow” and its 1987 sequel, the “Tales from the Darkside” TV series and film and the 1993 big-screen adaptation of King's “The Dark Half,” which Romero wrote and directed.
Romero adapted King's 1999 novel “The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon” with an eye on Dakota Fanning to star, but the adaptation stalled out because, according to Romero, “Hollywood thought the story was 'too soft,' especially with my name attached to it…” (October 2005 interview with Bloody-Disgusting). As for “Gerald's Game,” “Oculus” director Mike Flanagan was reported to have signed on to write and direct a film adaptation in May of last year, but no news has been reported since.
2. He understands that Barbra was an offensive character in the original “Night of the Living Dead”
“I apologize to women for Barbra in the original 'Night of the Living Dead,' a totally ineffective character…when we were creating 'Night of the Living Dead,' that was the Perils of Pauline [damsel in distress, serial queen melodrama]. She was running around, her heel snaps off, she falls down. She is completely ineffective, then she goes catatonic, and that's about it for her. So I apologize for that. When I wrote the [1990] remake Tom Savini directed, I made Barbra strong.”
Barbra, for the record, was played by Judith O'Dea in the 1968 film and by Patricia Tallman in the 1990 version.
Romero also stated that he plans to write “most” of the first season of his planned “Empire of the Dead” TV adaptation and direct “a couple” — “if it flies,” that is.
You can check out highlights from the conversation over at Blastr.