In response to recent events, legendary filmmaker George A. Romero made a surprise announcement today—a new initiative will see him create a motion picture trilogy featuring people who have not died and then come back to feast upon the flesh of the living…

Speaking to reporters on the campus of the University of Pittsburgh, the man who created Night of the Living Dead and other milestone zombie films over more than four decades, stated that the undead have become “passé” and “the stuff of CNN, not of works of the imagination.” Instead, Romero said, he would produce and direct films that focus on the day-to-day “lives of people struggling in a world filled with war, economic turmoil, despair, and disease. But did you catch the key word—lives?”

Expanding on this startling new choice of subject matter, Romero noted that the range of cruelty that the living demonstrate towards the living is unsurpassed both in recorded history and in enduring literature.

“As it turns out, and I’ve been doing a lot of research on this, human beings who are alive exhibit a wide array of compelling emotions, such as compassion, fear, ambition, and romantic love—it’s really incredible how vast the dramatic possibilities are when compared with inarticulate and, let’s face it, usually unsophisticated zombies.”

When some skeptics in attendance pointed out that Romero had in fact already made numerous films about “ordinary people,” the filmmaker lashed out, responding that the protagonists in these films were usually members of fringe groups or “deeply disturbed, possibly insane people.” Regaining his composure, the sixty-nine-year-old horror icon said, “All right, granted, that approach can be great—but it’s the rational, non-cannibalistic, non-tormented, non-vampiric people who are most fascinating to me at this stage in my career. I’m told that they lead most governments and large corporations, and in the process destroy whole communities and even nations.” Then a sly smile crept across his face. “Who knows?” he continued. “Perhaps one day they will destroy the entire planet with their policies and weapons. And remember, there’s no one out there hunting them with sawed-off shotguns. Why? Because they wear nice clothes, eat in the finest restaurants, and look like you and me. So they get away with it… and to me, that’s the ultimate horror.”

The first installment of Romero’s epic new trilogy is set to debut at the Toronto After Dark Film Festival in 2010 and is entitled Live it Up. It will be followed by Live and Let Live, and finally, and more ominously, Nightlife.