“Tone is everything”: Zack Snyder’s Most Underrated Movie Taught Him a Valuable Lesson He Tried His Best To Apply in Rebel Moon
- Zack Snyder's Dawn of the Dead is a remake of George A. Romero’s 1978 movie of the same name.
- Snyder said he made Dawn of the Dead with a goal that it'll attain 'cult status'
- Zack Snyder is very proud of his feature directorial debut movie.
Directed by Zack Snyder, 2004’s action-horror film Dawn of the Dead is a remake of George A. Romero’s movie of the same name, which was released in 1978. The story follows a group of people who are trying to survive a zombie apocalypse holed up in a suburban shopping mall. The makers developed the movie aiming to reinvigorate the zombie genre for a modern audience.
Upon release, the film received positive remarks from the critics and the audience, who mentioned that the remake version worked on the parts that the original movie lacked. However, Dawn of the Dead remains one of the underrated films by Snyder. The filmmaker opened up about working on his feature directorial debut and what lessons he learned while making it.
Zack Snyder revealed his biggest lesson learned with Dawn of the Dead
1978’s Dawn of the Dead by George A. Romero is regarded as one of Romero’s masterpieces, and similarly, 2004’s Dawn of the Dead is highly underrated and regarded as Zack Snyder’s one of the best works. The remake version was, however, a gorier, balls-to-the-wall action flick featuring zombies.
Regarded as one of the classics, Dawn of the Dead did help in bringing back the zombie genre in terms of movies and TV series. The movie also taught Snyder some valuable lessons that he’ll be able to apply in his future projects. In his interview with Den of Geek, Snyder shared that he is not interested in reworking Dawn of the Dead and re-releasing it as a director’s cut because there is nothing about the movie that he’d want to change.
It’s very much the movie I made at the time, and it completely satisfied what I was trying to do.
The publication noted that Dawn of the Dead feels like the work of a director who isn’t overthinking or trying to deconstruct the horror tropes. It feels like a project with which the director seemed to have fun. The filmmaker also shared during a conversation one valuable lesson he learned about storytelling while working on Dawn of the Dead, which he intends to carry in all of his projects. He said,
The thing I learned most from making that movie was that tone is everything.
Talking about incorporating the same lesson for Rebel Moon, Snyder said at the time that it would be very exciting for audiences to see the two alternate universes in Rebel Moon movies and understand why tone is everything. [Rebel Moon Part I & II are streaming on Netflix] Both parts received negative to mixed reviews and later an R-rated director’s cut was released for both parts. The director’s cut received a little better than the original movies but in a nutshell both parts sort of disappointed the critics and the audience.
Army of the Dead succeeded Dawn of the Dead, but unfortunately, it did not see the same success or popularity as its predecessor. Zack Snyder does not want to make or release a director’s cut for Army of the Dead. He shared that Netflix let him off the chain, and he just made a crazy zombie flick. He noted it was just fun and completely bonkers.
Zack Snyder considers Dawn of the Dead ‘one of his beloved films’
During the interview with Den of Geek, Zack Snyder was asked about his proudest moment when someone talked about Dawn of the Dead. He said that what he is proudest of is that even though the movie was a genre film, it was one of the unexpected movies. He added,
I didn’t clean it up too much. You know what I mean? Like how a modern remake can sometimes sanitize an idea.
The filmmaker mentioned that his goal in making the film was to make something that felt like a cult movie from 1978 and not just something more glossy and Hollywood.
He shared at the time that he really resisted as best he could with the studio, which finally understood what he was trying to do.
Make something that has that cult-quality feeling. That’s what I am most proud of.
In speaking to Collider while celebrating the 20th anniversary of Dawn of the Dead, he admits that Dawn of the Dead is one of his beloved films. Back in 2023, Snyder gave credit to James Gunn for the screenplay of the movie, stating that the entire movie was Gunn’s idea and that he’d like to give him his due credit.
Dawn of the Dead is available to stream on Hulu, Prime Video, and Max.
