As his own acclaimed zombie comedy celebrates its 20th anniversary, Simon Pegg reveals the one issue he has with Zack Snyder's Dawn of the Dead. The 2004 movie served as both Snyder's feature directorial debut and a remake of George A. Romero's classic of the same name, centering around a group of survivors trapped in a mall amid a zombie apocalypse. Written by James Gunn in one of his first big projects, Dawn of the Dead garnered generally favorable reviews and was a box office hit, grossing over $102 million against its $26 million production budget.

During a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter for the 20th anniversary of Shaun of the Dead, Pegg was asked about the possibility of a reboot of his movie. Not only was he blunt in not allowing one to happen, the writer/actor recalled his frustrations with Snyder's Dawn of the Dead, feeling that while it is "a great movie", it should not have used the title of Romero's original, calling it "so disrespectful" and stating the title was only kept "because people recognize it". See Pegg's explanation below:

And the thought of anyone just nicking the title [bothers me]. I always got annoyed at Zack Snyder’s Dawn of the Dead remake — it’s a great movie. It’s really exciting. But I hated the fact they called it Dawn of the Dead, because that was George [Romero]’s film. They could have called it Deadish, which was a great line in the film that one of the actors used, and it still would have been a great film, but when you just take a title because people recognize it, it’s so disrespectful to the original.

Pegg Isn't The Only One Who Has Issues With Snyder's Remake

Though a surprising hit with critics on its release, and still the best-reviewed Snyder movie to date, there was one voice more powerful than Pegg's who took issues with the Dawn of the Dead remake, that being Romero himself. The acclaimed filmmaker came out a year after the movie's release, in a joint interview with Pegg, criticizing the remake's "aimless" narrative and the decision to create fast-running zombies over the slow-moving ones seen in his original franchise installments. Romero did, however, complement it as being a potentially good action movie.

Even with the positive reviews, there were some who shared similar critiques of Pegg and Romero for Snyder's Dawn of the Dead remake. The mall setting was one of the more notable differences between the two movies, with some feeling that the point of it in Romero's original was to be a satirical takedown of the rise in consumerism at the time, whereas the remake lost this element. The fast-moving zombies have also been a point of debate among horror genre fans thanks to both Dawn of the Dead and Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later, with some believing the slow-moving undead are more terrifying than the reverse.

In spite of these complaints, it's hard to deny the impact Dawn of the Dead had on both Snyder's career and the zombie subgenre as a whole. Not only did it establish him as a strong visual filmmaker after a career as a music video director, but it also laid the groundwork for his Army of the Dead franchise at Netflix, which has an animated prequel show in an unknown state of limbo after years of production, and a sequel in the works.

Dawn of the Dead is available to stream on Prime Video.

Source: THR