It seems that the media every now and then gets a hook on a villain. for a while it was vampires (ex. True Blood) . Before that werewolves (ex. the Howling). Now zombies are big with shows like “The Walking Dead”.
BTW, when I say “The media” thats tv, movies, video games, etc…
But will we get tired of zombies and if so, what new “monster” if you will, will replace them?
I think Zombies will go bye bye.
My best guess for a replacement will be something of a biblical nature. It’s actually already starting with all the recent bible movies, and then there’s Constantine on TV.
Will the media get tired of doing robots, demons, ghosts, aliens, super heroes, dragons, or Lovecraftian horrors? Love stories? Criminal dramas? Cop shows?
Nah.
Zombies have been going strong for 50 years, they’re a basic staple of…not even Western culture, world culture (Resident Evil and House of the Dead were 1996, Japan). I could see their popularity going up and down in tv/movies/books, but they’re pretty much the perfect video game enemy. Mow 'em down, don’t feel too bad about it. Them, demons, and Nazis.
Zombies are non-sentient and already dead so it’s morally acceptable to kill them, which is good for plenty of action scenes, extremely gorey ones at that.
They are also a very human enemy, which makes them a more realistic target than giant wolves or weird otherworldly aliens. At the same time, they are also symbolic of death, and overcoming the zombie hordes means overcoming death itself.
Of course, there’s also the zombapocalypse “last man on Earth survivalist” fantasy that appeals to a lot of people on a very basic level. Free of societal norms and government, the person is free to be whatever they want to be. The ultimate freedom.
So no, they’re not going to go away anytime soon.
We have a winner. I think this has more to do with H’weird’s infatuation than most of the other notions. It’s the A-Team solution, a full generation later.
Zombie flicks have been around longer than I’ve been alive, and I’m old enough that I’m being stalked by AARP. Not as “in your face” as they are now, but there have been at least a few minor zombie movies each year since the 50s. It’s doubtful that they’ll ever go away. The current craze will fade sooner or later, and they’ll go back to being a niche genre again.
They won’t get tired of doing zombies. The audience will get tired of seeing movies about zombies. And a new fad will take its place.
Movies get made because the people involved think there’s an audience for them. Take away the audience, and they’ll make something else.
the story lines were getting goofy.
they are going to make it more real with iZombie.
RealityChuck nailed it. It’s short sighted to say ‘will they’ the question is ‘when will they’ and like RC said, they won’t do it until people stop consuming those shows. That’s just how it works. As long as people are watching it, advertisers will keep giving them money (or people will buy the premium stations, pay for the games etc).
Yes, we will get tired of Zombies. We probably won’t stop watching the current shows but at some point, as new zombie shows (or games/books/movies) show up people won’t watch them and the genre will start failing, or at least scaling back and something will take it’s place. What it will be is anyone’s guess.
Zombies were good because you could kill as many of them as you wanted with no guilt. They were just mindless dead killing meat robots.
Zombies got ruined by humanizing them. They think and talk now. Stupid move.
The paparazzi and people that text while walking. They’ll be the new cannon fodder.
That’s what I said in 1968. I’m starting to think I was wrong.
So starting from 1932, an average of 2 to 5 zombie movies were made a year. All they way until the 80’s were the average went up. Some years hitting 10 movies in one year. This trend lasted all the way until 2008 where the average skyrocketed. Some years more than 20 zombie movies were made.
2014 was actually a down trend year with only 14 movies made.
Source
Granted, some of those movies are a bit of a stretch as to what I would classify as “Zombie” movies. And most are obscure movies nobody has ever heard of.
It should also be noted that zombies are a very easy adversaries to write - there is never any rational reason for zombie apocalypses, they just happen. Zombies have no motivation other than to eat brains of living people. There are no special weakness that must be strategically employed (like a silver bullet) to kill a zombie, you just shoot them in the head. Zombies can be anywhere, anytime and anyone can become a zombie. And no matter how many you kill, there are still 1000 more waiting in the wings to rampage away.
Zombies are the lazy screenplay writers’ ideal for a horror movie monster. Anyone can churn out a zombie flick because (with rare exception) they are all essentially as mindless as the zombies themselves. So long as the general public is willing to stare glassy eyed at dull, non-challenging formulaic shlock like “the Walking Dead”, Hollywood will continue to crank this shit out.
I was going to mention above that trends cycle, they come and go and zombies will go out of fashion in a while just like they did a while back and they’ll show back up again in 20 or 30 years, just like everything else…but, clearly I was wrong, there’s been zombie movies every single year. However, most of those are B movies. I’d be curious, though, if you were to go through that list and look at which movies are A and B movies or write down how much each one grossed compared to other movies coming out at the same time if you’d see a trend. If A movies/higher grossing numbers would cycle in and out of favor over the years.
I give the big-time for zombies to run maybe another 2 years and then fade back to the more regional thing it was 10 or 12 years ago. (Let’s face it – you ain’t ever going to get Evans City/Pittsburgh to let go of zombies)
The next thing I see going viral would be more the “mad scientist” tampering with nature and creating rampant diseases and freakazoids.
That’s all an excellent shift of viewpoint, and dead accurate as well. Understanding that 99% of media producers will produce whatever draws the eyes and bux is a critical step in understanding how our media world works.
That said, though, “They get tired of making _____” is perfectly good shorthand for “They get tired of making something that doesn’t bring maximum return,” even though that effect is because it’s the audience that got tired of _____.
Is that actually indicative of a trend in zombie cinema, or is it just echoing the general trend in reduced costs for film production and better cataloging?
In a very non-random non-scientific sampling of four of the zombie movies from 1981: Two were French/Spanish films with limited release and success (one was screened for one week in one theater in Paris and sold 3740 tickets), One was a student film made by students of the University of Memphis shot on a budget of $27k, and the 4th was The Evil Dead, which is a well-known cult classic.
If those movies had been made in the 30s or 40s, they’d have cost much more would we ever have heard about them? And many of them probably wouldn’t have been made because it was more expensive to make films back then.
Film production in general exploded in the late 2000s due to readily available digital video cameras. It’s now possible to shoot and edit a feature film with a capital investment of less than $1000. Over 4000 feature films were submitted to the Sundance Festival alone last year.
I myself never get tired of zombies/walking dead, although I do like my zombies specialized. I’m a huge fan of George Romero’s original trilogy of films…‘Night Of The Living Dead,’ ‘Dawn Of The Dead,’ & ‘Day Of The Dead.’
Even though there have been other movies & television programs in the genre that I have enjoyed through the years, the PINNACLE of the whole genre for me is Romero’s 1978 ‘Dawn Of The Dead.’
Anything that would have to do with zombies that follow that movie’s mythos I would love to see & would never get tired of it.
I have been waiting since 1983 (the year I first saw DOTD for the first time) for a movie to come along that captures the essence, mood & overall general feeling I got, & continue to get every time I watch that film. Unfortunately no one has really gotten close to that IMHO. The closest was Romero’s 1985 follow up, ‘Day Of The Dead.’
Anything Romero did after that in the zombie genre has been a piss poor attempt. I did enjoy ‘Land Of The Dead,’ but in no way was it even CLOSE to the original three.
I will continue to wait for someone to “hit that note” with me in the meantime. AMC’s ‘The Walking Dead’ has been doing an admirable job though.
Oh yeah, I have to state how important the band ‘Goblin’s’ soundtrack to ‘Dawn Of The Dead’ '78 was overall to the film’s success with me. Just brilliant.
For those that may not have seen the cut of the movie with the ‘Goblin’ soundtrack, I implore you to search it out, or in the meantime go to ‘YouTube’ & listen to some ‘Goblin.’
Just great 70’s progressive rock with some serious mood to boot.*
I’m still playing “spot the me” in Dawn but I have to agree with all three. I usually refer comments on others zombies as “Well, as St George taught us in Chapter one of the Book of the Night -----”
Now the later remake crack-meth-speed zombies I don’t like at all.
I think what we will see is zombies getting smart like in, I cant remember but it was a British zombie movie.