The late George Romero essentially invented the zombie with Night of the Living Dead, but several of his undead movie ideas ended up unmade. In fact, a distressing amount of Romero movie ideas, mostly horror, and some even making it to a full script, never became a reality. A lot of that is down to Romero's constant drive for creative independence, which often led to clashes with Hollywood studios, who were only willing to exchange funding for some semblance of creative control from their end.
That is famously why Romero's Day of the Dead, released in 1985, ended up being vastly pared down from Romero's original script, which Romero had crafted to be a true zombie epic. Unfortunately, in exchange for the money he would need to pull that original script off, producers demanded he turn in an R-rated film, instead of going all out with the gore and releasing unrated like Dawn of the Dead. Romero said no, and opted to make a smaller film for less money, but one that he had the final say on.
To Romero's credit, Day of the Dead was still a great movie, and arguably one of his best ever. Sadly, fans will never get to know if the following unmade Romero zombie movies could've equaled or surpassed it in quality, that is unless some enterprising filmmaker gets permission from the legendary director's estate to take over the reins of the script. For now, here are all the known Romero zombie movie ideas that remain unrealized.
Twilight of the Dead
While 2009's Survival of the Dead was Romero's last zombie movie, it wasn't planned to be. He'd been working on a conclusion to his Living Dead saga before passing, called Twilight of the Dead, which would've picked up sometime after Land of the Dead, and shown how the evolution of intelligent zombie leader Big Daddy had changed the post-apocalyptic landscape for both the living and the dead. Romero had written a treatment with a writer named Paolo Zelati, and once Romero was no longer around to finish, Zelati sought and received the permission of George's widow, Suzanne Romero, to complete the script and make Twilight of the Dead. Thankfully, this one may soon leave the "unmade" column.
Diamond Dead
Twilight of the Dead was planned to be the end of Romero's Living Dead saga, but Diamond Dead was another prospect entirely. A zombie musical, Diamond Dead would've seen a female musician join a rock band, only for the whole band to end up dead. She then makes a deal with Death to bring them back, but the catch is they're now flesh-craving zombies. Diamond Dead came close to happening in the mid-2000s, with Rocky Horror Picture Show composer Richard Hartley doing the music, and no less than Ridley Scott lined up to produce. In the end, though, those in charge of the purse strings in Hollywood just didn't have faith in Romero's rather unique vision to be a financial success.
Welcome to Dead House
Many years before the Goosebumps movies starring Jack Black arrived, Romero had written a script for a movie based on the very first book in R.L. Stine's series, Welcome to Dead House. The adaptation would've kept the basic premise - the Benson family move into a small town called Dark Falls and have to avoid being killed by its zombie inhabitants - and character names, but injected some of Romero's usual social commentary into the mix. Instead of a mysterious gas turning the town's residents into zombies, this time it's due to a curse placed on them by evil town overlord Foster Devries, who employs them all. If they want to remain alive - so to speak - the undead have to sacrifice a new family to Devries every year.
Resident Evil
Before the days when Paul W.S. Anderson and Milla Jovovich ultimately made the Resident Evil movie franchise their own, George Romero came close to landing in the director's chair. Hiring the godfather of zombie movies to helm an adaptation of a zombie video game makes perfect sense, but sadly, those in charge of the money department again weren't confident in Romero's script equaling big bucks. Romero's version was much closer to the games, which would surely have pleased fans, although it did make some odd changes, such as making Chris Redfield a rancher, Jill Valentine his love interest, and Barry Burton into a childhood friend of Albert Wesker's. Still, Romero fans will always wonder what might've been.
Road of the Dead
Road of the Dead, written in the mid-2010s, actually wasn't a project George Romero intended to direct, but rather one he would produce from an idea by his friend and collaborator Matt Birman. This story was also set later in Land of the Dead's world and saw a human survivor colony living on a seemingly safe and protected Canadian island. As with Fiddler's Green in Land though, the cost of safety was living under a tyrant. Entertaining the masses was gladiator-style road races between zombies who've remembered the basics of driving cars. Unfortunately, various legal issues following Romero's death arose due to Birman choosing to co-credit Romero on the script for some additional lines, and that stalled the movie's progress.
Survival of the Dead 2
As anyone who's seen all of George Romero's zombie movies will know, Diary of the Dead and Survival of the Dead kind of exist in their own little pocket universe, separate from the prior four Living Dead movies. Around the time of Survival of the Dead's release, Romero did an interview about the film with Movies.com, and when asked about a potential sequel, said he was considering something with a noir flavor, or a jungle adventure with people traveling down the Amazon River. It's unclear how serious he was being though, as he followed those ideas up with "I'm just trying to have fun." Whether or not George Romero was simply having a laugh, a jungle-set zombie movie directed by the master sure sounds like an intriguing prospect. Sadly, fans will never get to see it come to fruition.