Zombies. So hot right now. Zack Snyder and Danny Boyle gave them a shot in the arm with Dawn of the Dead and 28 Days Later, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is trying to find itself a lead and a director, George A Romero keeps finding new words to put in front of “… of the Dead” and they’re even making inroads to TV, courtesy of Frank Darabont’s The Walking Dead.
Now we have “Stronghold”, being adapted by screenwriter Tom Fickling from Paul Finch’s graphic novel of the same name. Jason Kingsley, who is drawing on years of experience as a video game director, will make his debut as a feature film director. The producer for Amber Entertainment will be Ileen Maisel.
The story for Stronghold revolves around medieval Wales and a group of rebels who use druid magic to summon a zombie army to help them defeat their English overlords. The notional hero of the story is a knight who ignores the orders of his masters in order to try to rescue his enemy’s daughter, all the while battling legions of the undead.
According to Variety, Kingsley is hoping that taking zombies out of their generally contemporary setting and shifting the context to the middle ages will inject some much needed variety into what could easily start to become an overcrowded and derivative sub-genre:-
“We think that the zombies are great fun. I’ve known Ileen for many years, and we think this project is a great way to get into business with Amber”.
So, we have a producer, a director and a script. All we need now is a cast. We’ll let you know as soon as we hear anything more.
