Dawn of the Dead is a 2004 American action horror film directed by Zack Snyder, in his feature directorial debut, from a screenplay by James Gunn. A remake of George A. Romero's 1978 film of the same name, the film features an ensemble cast that includes Sarah Polley, Ving Rhames, Jake Weber, and Mekhi Phifer, with Scott Reiniger, Tom Savini, and Ken Foree from the original film appearing in cameos. Set in Milwaukee, its plot follows a group of survivors who try to survive a zombie apocalypse while holed up in a suburban shopping mall.

Producers Eric Newman and Marc Abraham developed the film rather as a "re-envisioning" of the original Dawn of the Dead, aiming to reinvigorate the zombie genre for modern audiences. They bought the rights from co-producer Richard P. Rubinstein (who produced the original) and hired Gunn to write the script, which oriented the original's premise around the action genre. Intent on making the remake a straight horror, Snyder took over to direct to keep every aspect of the production as grounded in reality as possible. Filming took place from June to September 2003, on location at a Toronto shopping mall that was slated for demolition. The special makeup effects were created by David LeRoy Anderson, and the music was composed by Tyler Bates in his first collaboration with Snyder.

Dawn of the Dead was theatrically released on March 19, 2004, by Universal Pictures. Despite Romero's distaste for it, the film earned generally positive reviews from critics, who found improvements over the original in terms of acting, production values, and scares, even though they felt it lacked character development, was excessively gory, and indifferent to Romero's preoccupation with American consumerism. The film was a commercial success, grossing $102.3 million worldwide on a $26 million budget. Retrospective reviews have called it Snyder's best film, and it has made several lists of the best horror and zombie films. A spiritual successor, Army of the Dead, was released in 2021.

Plot

After completing a nursing shift in the Milwaukee area, Ana returns home to her husband, Luis. Because they are distracted during the evening, they miss emergency news reports. The next morning, a zombified neighbor girl enters their bedroom and kills Luis. He quickly reanimates and attacks Ana, who escapes through the chaotic neighborhood, crashes her car, and loses consciousness.

When she wakes, Ana joins police sergeant Kenneth Hall, electronics salesman Michael, and Andre, a criminal, with his pregnant wife, Luda. They enter a nearby shopping mall, where an infected security guard attacks them. Three uninfected guards, C.J., Bart, and Terry, disarm them but allow them to stay. After securing the mall, the group sees another survivor, Andy, trapped in his gun store across the parking lot. They also spot a military helicopter but fail to attract the pilot's attention.

The next day, a truck carrying survivors reaches the mall while pursued by zombies. Although C.J. and Bart want to refuse them entry, the others intervene. The newcomers consist of Norma, Steve, Tucker, Monica, Glen, Frank, and Frank's daughter, Nicole, plus a gravely ill woman who dies, reanimates, and is killed. The group realizes that bites spread the infection. Frank, who has been bitten, isolates himself; after he turns, Kenneth shoots him. Andre then goes to Luda, who has hidden a scratch wound.

As weeks pass, Kenneth and Andy begin communicating by whiteboard, while Ana grows closer to Michael and Nicole bonds with Terry. When the power fails, C.J., Bart, Michael, and Kenneth go to the parking garage to restore the emergency generator and discover a breach, signaled by a friendly dog named Chips. Zombies kill Bart, and the others set them on fire. Elsewhere, Luda, restrained by Andre, dies during childbirth and reanimates. Norma kills her, leading to a gunfight in which both Norma and Andre die. The others find and kill the zombie infant. The survivors then decide to reach a marina, take Steve's yacht, and sail to an island on Lake Michigan. They reinforce two shuttle buses for the escape.

To send supplies to Andy, who has begun starving, the group lowers Chips into the parking lot with provisions strapped to his body. The dog reaches the store, but a zombie enters through the dog door. Nicole crashes a truck into the store to retrieve Chips, but is trapped by the now-infected Andy. Kenneth, Michael, Tucker, Terry, and C.J. reach the store through the sewers, kill Andy, rescue Nicole, and collect ammunition. On the way back, Tucker breaks both legs, and C.J. kills him at his request. When the group cannot secure the mall doors, they evacuate.

During the drive to the marina, Glen accidentally kills Monica with a chainsaw, and the resulting crash kills him as well. Steve tries to abandon the others but is killed by a hidden zombie. Ana kills the reanimated Steve and takes his boat keys. At the marina, C.J. stays behind so the others can escape. Michael reveals that he has been bitten and kills himself, while Ana, Kenneth, Nicole, Terry, and Chips leave on the yacht. The film ends with camcorder footage showing the group running out of supplies, reaching an island, and being overwhelmed by countless zombies.

Cast

In addition, Inna Korobkina portrays Luda, Andre's pregnant wife, while Scott Reiniger, Tom Savini, and Ken Foreewho were in the original filmmake cameo appearances as a general, sheriff, and televangelist, respectively.

Production Development

Plans to remake 1978's Dawn of the Dead were conceived by producer Eric Newman, a fan of zombie films who cited the George A. Romero horror film as the best in this genre. With the remake, Newman and producer Marc Abraham wanted to reinvigorate the zombie genre for modern audiences as well as "make the old fans happy and make a lot of new fans". Newman and Abraham bought the rights to Dawn of the Dead from its producer and rights holder Richard P. Rubinstein, who was reluctant at first as he was "concerned that somewhere along the way a studio would sanitize Newman's vision for producing a version with 'attitude'", but that it was "Marc Abraham's long track record in keeping the creative integrity of the studio distributed films he has produced intact that gave me reason to say 'yes'". Newman hired James Gunn to write the script, and the studio brought Gunn in despite not wanting to deliver them a signal idea for the film beforehand. A fan of the original Dawn of the Dead since he was a young boy, Gunn explained that he took the job because he "kind of saw generally what it could be".

The producers conceptualized the remake as more of a "re-envisioning" which would work in some references to the original but would primarily work on its own terms. Co-producer Eric Newman cited Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978), The Thing (1982), and The Fly (1986) as influences on the remake, considering these to be "amazing updates" as well as "great movies that add to rather than diminish the original films". By way of respect to Romero's film, the producers cast the original's Tom Savini, Scott Reiniger, and Ken Foree in cameos; and incorporated visual references to Gaylen Ross and James A. Baffico.

In writing the script, Gunn took an action-oriented approach while remaining faithful to the basic premise of Romero's version. To develop the plot, he declined to write a treatment in favor of a discovery writing method whereby he would devise hypothetical situations which would ultimately force the characters to evacuate the mall. Gunn decided to leave the origin of the zombie outbreak ambiguous, believing this would give not only equal consideration to each audience's viewpoint (scientific or otherwise) but also something to think about what they would do if they found themselves in a similar situation. The script was given uncredited rewrites by Michael Tolkin and Scott Frank; co-producer Richard P. Rubinstein said Tolkin further developed the characters while Frank provided some of the bigger, upbeat action scenes. Gunn revealed he received internet backlash over the film due to his past screenwriting credit on Scooby-Doo (2002), believing him to be unqualified for the job. However, film critic Harry Knowles, initially an opponent of the remake, read Gunn's script and gave it a positive response on his website Ain't It Cool News, which Gunn said helped eliminate doubts cast upon him by fans of the original.

Theme With Dawn of the Dead, Gunn wanted to explore the human condition as well as tell a wholly different story about redemption. He elaborated on the redemptive theme of the film in an interview with IGN during a press junket for Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed released that same year:

[...] Dawn of the Dead is about redemption because it's about a bunch of people who have lived certain lives, who have maybe not been the best people, and suddenly they have everything that they've used to define themselves: Their careers, their churches, their jobs, their families are stripped away. They're gone. They start at nothing and they have to become who they really are in the face of all that and some of the people are redeemed and end up becoming good people and some of them are not redeemed and they end up, you know, not redeemed. And that's what kind of drove me throughout the story, was it was a story about redemption. I also think that there's a lot about how people survive and what people turn to in the face of such tragedy. The tragedy in this case being flesh-eating zombies. And really it's a group coming together to work as a community who wouldn't otherwise work together. So there is that foundation of love, that basic message, within even Dawn of the Dead...

Pre-production

Zack Snyder chose to direct the remake as his first feature film because it gave the television commercial director "a reason to care about every shot". Not wanting his version inevitably compared to George A. Romero's, he concurred with the producers on reimagining the latter film as opposed to doing it as a "remake", which, in his view, would have entailed re-shooting Romero's script. For that matter, he aimed to make his film a straight horror that was "as serious as a heart attack" and keep every aspect of its production as grounded in reality as possible. His approach included previsualizing the film with storyboards and introducing the concept of running zombies, which he said was his "fresh, new way" of giving it a sense of verisimilitude and rendering zombies as if they were real threats, especially when they attack in hordes. Snyder maintained Gunn's decision not to reveal the origin of the zombie outbreak, believing it was "obvious that in this fallen society, you wouldn't know where the whole plague started".

Set design In searching for a suitable upscale mall location for the film, production designer Andrew Neskoromny looked for existing malls that were scheduled for demolition. His search yielded no results until he found the now-defunct Thornhill Square shopping mall in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, which measured approximately . Dubbed the "Crossroads Mall", the crew completely redid the mall over an eight-week period, adding an expensive water feature near the entrance, 14 stores, parking structures, and warehouse areas. Since Snyder wanted the stores palpable in terms of design and stood not merely as storefronts, Neskoromny's team accordingly built them as actual retail stores complete with merchandise. These stores were given fake names, since only two major retail brands agreed to be featured in the film.

Makeup and practical effects