{"id":337008,"date":"2017-07-17T06:54:05","date_gmt":"2017-07-17T06:54:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=337008"},"modified":"2017-07-17T06:54:05","modified_gmt":"2017-07-17T06:54:05","slug":"living-dead-director-george-a-romero-dies-at-77","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/2017\/07\/living-dead-director-george-a-romero-dies-at-77\/","title":{"rendered":"Living Dead director George A Romero dies at 77"},"content":{"rendered":"
The American-born filmmaker George A Romero, who created the genre-defining Living Dead movie franchise, has died at the age of 77, his manager has said.<\/p>\n
Romero died in his sleep on Sunday with his wife and daughter at his side, after a “brief but aggressive battle” with lung cancer, Chris Roe said.<\/p>\n
Romero co-wrote and directed the film that started the zombie series Night of the Living Dead in 1968.<\/p>\n
It led to a number of sequels – and a slew of imitators.<\/p>\n
Mr Roe said Mr Romero died listening to the score of The Quiet Man, “one of his all-time favourite films”.<\/p>\n
At the time of its release, Night of the Living Dead was criticised for being gory but it went on to be a cult classic and shape horror and zombie films for decades.<\/p>\n
While it did not use the word zombies, it was the first film to depict cannibalistic reanimated corpses.<\/p>\n
Previous films had shown zombies as being living people who had been bewitched through voodoo.<\/p>\n
Despite having a budget of just $114,000, the film made $30m at the box office and was followed by five sequels and two remakes.<\/p>\n
Mr Romero had a non-starring and uncredited role in the film as a news reporter.<\/p>\n
He went on to direct other films including the 1971 romantic comedy There’s Always Vanilla, the 1978 vampire film Martin, and the 1982 Stephen King adaptation Creepshow.<\/p>\n
His only work to top the box office success enjoyed by Night of the Living Dead was Dawn of the Dead, released in 1978, which earned more than $40m.<\/p>\n