The Weinstein Company is following up the success of their Zombie flick with a zombie flick…

That is, fresh on the heels of its successful release of Halloween, the company has purchased the North American distribution rights for George A. Romero's Diary of the Dead for $2 million. The film, which recently premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, is intended to act as a shot in the arm to Romero’s franchise, which begins its fifth decade in 2008. The plot is said to involve how filmmakers shooting a horror movie react when the subject matter intrudes on the “real world.
” As such, Diary seems to recall aspects of both The Blair Witch Project (1999) and the meta-heavy approach used by Wes Craven when he reconfigured his franchise with New Nightmare (1994). 

Romero also has plans to direct yet one more zombie flick, this one a comedy, although he is not yet disclosing any details.

The director’s emphasis on the freshness of the ideas in both these projects bodes well, for it was the somewhat stale quality of Land of the Dead (2005) that disappointed this life-long Romero fan. That film seemed to resemble something made by folks setting out to make a “George Romero movie” rather than the real goods. Perhaps my expectations are high, but why shouldn’t they be when they concern the man whose name is now used to label an established sub-subgenre in both horror movies and literature?

(Source: IGN Entertainment)