News
‘Deploy and Destroy’ Could Have ‘Saw’ and ‘John Wick’ Characters in the Future
Lionsgate Games and Apps Ministry’s Deploy and Destroy, which launched back in May, and features everyone’s favorite boomstick-wielding king in Ash Williams, has received a brand new update today that brings with it tournament play. But that’s only part of the news.
In an interview with Variety, Lionsgate’s Peter Levin, president of interactive ventures, games and digital strategies, states that while the game currently includes characters from Ash vs. Evil Dead and Divergent, the plan is to potentially include other franchises in the game. Such as John Wick or Saw.
“We spend a lot of time meeting with talented developers from all over the world who are passionate about our movies and TV shows,” Levin said. “Apps Ministry are huge fans of the Divergent series, and that’s where the conversation about Deploy and Destroy started. As we got into the early stages of development, we realized the design and mechanics in front of us could make for a super fun mashup of fan-favorite IP — imagine John Wick and Rambo fighting in an arena modeled after the cabin from Ash vs Evil Dead, for instance.”
Levin’s plan is to include not only Lionsgate properties, but other IPs that fans would enjoy. “While our vision is to deliver the ultimate mashup for action fans, our main priority is making sure we find fun characters that match the tone of this world we’ve created,” he said. “Perhaps the crew from Reservoir Dogs could take on a team made up of John Wick, Ash, Rambo and Barney Ross. The possibilities are endless.”
All of us here at Bloody Disgusting are deeply saddened to learn that George A. Romero Foundation Founder and President Suzanne Desrocher-Romero has passed away.
GARF shared in a statement on socials, “It is with a heavy heart that we announce the passing of Suzanne Desrocher Romero. Suzanne passed away of natural causes on June 24 at her home in Toronto after a prolonged illness.”
The statement continues, “Suzanne was the fierce leader of the George A. Romero Estate and The George A. Romero Foundation. She worked tirelessly to preserve George’s legacy. Her work at the foundation will continue to inspire and live on for generations to come. The family asks for privacy at this time.”
Desrocher-Romero founded GARF in 2018, after her late husband’s passing in 2017, and has been a fierce advocate for his legacy and the arts. It was her mission to “strengthen horror as a serious field of global study,” and she was a tremendous fighter on behalf of Romero’s works and supporting new filmmakers inspired by his legacy.
It was Desrocher-Romero who spearheaded the recovery and restoration of The Amusement Park, and, as the person in charge of the George A. Romero estate, worked closely with author Daniel Kraus on completing unfinished novels like Pay the Piper and The Living Dead. She most recently celebrated the restoration of her favorite of Romero’s zombie films, Day of the Dead, and was hard at work producing the upcoming film Twilight of the Dead.
That passionate advocacy led to Suzanne Desrocher-Romero becoming family to Bloody Disgusting as well.
2023 marked the start of an ongoing partnership between Bloody FM and GARF on The Dead, a scripted audio series spanning multiple seasons that saw Desrocher-Romero working closely with the Bloody FM team and mentoring the series’s contributing writers with GARF. To say her loss will be felt internally is an understatement.
“Anytime George Romero is mentioned is good, because what we are doing is to provide a healthy legacy. We’re uplifting his legacy, we’re supporting the archive, and we’re also supporting the Horror Study Center. So, all of these three things are what the Foundation is striving to do. As far as I’m concerned, the more we say George Romero’s name, the better it is,” Desrocher-Romero recently told BD.
It’s the perfect encapsulation of her unwavering enthusiasm for supporting Romero’s legacy and the horror genre, and just a glimpse at how much she contributed to preserving it. She is, in short, an inspiration.
We send our deepest condolences to Suzanne Desrocher-Romero’s family, friends, and GARF.
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