Now in production at Chiller
Thanks to The Walking Dead, zombies are well into another Hollywood resurgence and Steve Niles’ Remains is getting a second chance at life, this time on the big screen. It’s a funny thing, because the title story made its debut as a comic book mini-series during an earlier round of heavy zombie-laden entertainment when it was published by IDW in 2004, around the time Zack Snyder’s Dawn of the Dead hit and fans were eagerly anticipating George Romero’s Land of the Dead.
“Everyone is all caught up on what zombies are now,” Niles says. “I wrote [WD series creator] Robert Kirkman an email thanking him. Remains is an older property I wrote years ago and I credit the popularity of The Walking Dead for the Remains movie.”
Niles tells us Chiller had been after the property for some time. It wasn’t until recently that the network announced it was getting behind a small screen adaptation with Colin Theys directing. The film is being shot in Connecticut and is slated to debut sometime this fall. How faithful to the story the film will be is unknown, but Niles isn’t going to settle for a “loose adaptation.” “I’m going to be a stickler about the story. I let the guys know, this is the one thing I’ll be a pill about. You always see this stuff wander from the source material and I’m not saying Remains is this big thing, but it’s the property they bought, so let’s stay close to it.”
He shouldn’t be too concerned. Early reports stemming from local media around Mystic, Connecticut (where production is underway) says the film is indeed set at a Reno, Nevada casino, so it’s on the right track. For those not familiar with the comic, Remains follows a squabbling blackjack dealer and a waitress/dancer fending off zombies, bikers and a new kind of menace in the wake of world-wide nuclear devastation.
“We’re doing a TV movie with a limited budget,” Niles says, “but Remains works for that. It’s a simple story that takes place in one or two locations. This is sort of a low budget experiment. I’ve been down this road before with an attempt to adapt my stories for DVD and it didn’t have the greatest results, so I’m hoping we’ll figure out how to do this. I told them to read Richard Matheson’s scripts. He wrote the best made-for-TV stories. Those Night Stalker films are still great. If they pull off some Dan Curtis-style television antics, I’ll be happy. We’re going to have fun with the zombies, we’re dealing with two separate types here.â
Niles hopes Remains paves the way for more television work. “We’re going to start with this movie and hopefully build from there. My life dream is to do some sort of Twilight Zone/Tales from the Crypt show.”
Stay tuned for more updates on Remains as they come in!
Source: Ryan Turek, Managing Editor
