16 - Dawn of the Dead

    As an epidemic of the living dead grows, a group of four people take a helicopter, and wind up securing a mall to keep themselves safe and well supplied.
    The Romero classic.  It's well-regarded critically.  I've liked it quite a bit, although now and then I find it a little formless.
    My appreciation for the pacing has grown as I've gotten older.  I've liked the quiet moments more, and felt like more of the violence is just padding the length.  From a screenwriting point of view, it's a weird, almost unstructured movie.  It's linear, but it doesn't seem to hit the peaks as expected.  The opening act feels strangely disconnected from the rest of it, the second act is way too long, and the third act feels like a desperate move to give some plot to the story.
    As bad as that sounds, it's still a very good movie, but by modern standards, it's not acceptable.
    This brings up a problem with modern movies.  A luxurious movie like Dawn of the Dead would never get made today.  (Well, maybe it could, if Paul Thomas Anderson wanted to make it.)  Horror movies provide a certain return on investment, and something this sprawling would never be approved by producers.
    This made me think of the stories about Day of the Dead, how Romero had written a much bigger epic that was going to cap off the series perfectly.  But they didn't want to spend the money on financing it.  I wonder what kind of movie could have been?