Over the years, George Romero made it pretty clear that he wasn’t a fan of “The Walking Dead,“ a series that Romero’s zombie films directly paved the way for. Most notably, Romero had at one point referred to the show as being “a soap opera with a zombie occasionally,” which pretty much ensured that he would have no interest in ever directing an episode.
Interestingly, frequent Romero collaborator Greg Nicotero, who got his start on Romero’s Day of the Dead, is a major behind the scenes force on “The Walking Dead,” executive producing and handling the show’s makeup effects, while also regularly directing episodes. As it turns out, Nicotero had actually approached Romero about coming on board years back.
Relayed by EW, Nicotero noted during a screening of Romero’s Dawn of the Dead (in 3D) over the weekend that the “WD” team had really wanted Romero in the director’s chair.
“You know, we loved the idea of George coming onboard,” he said. “Frank Darabont and I talked about it after the end of season 1. And I had a conversation with George and I said, ‘Hey, man, would you ever want to come and direct?’ This was after we’d only aired six episodes. So, the show hadn’t really even caught on.”
“George said, ‘No, listen, you guys have your world, and I have my world, and it’s cool. I think he really was still intending on developing some other zombie stuff.”
