There Was Supposed to Be a Zombie Dog Sequence in Snyder’s Dawn of the Dead

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With today’s announcement that Scream Factory will be releasing a 2-disc collector’s edition of Zack Snyder’s Dawn of the Dead, it seems only fitting to remember what might’ve been with the film. From the sound of it, it seems like writer James Gunn wanted to introduce a bit more violence in the film, specifically towards animals! Now, before you lose it, let’s dig into the specifics of this information, shall we?

In a 2007 interview with CHUD, actress Jenna Fischer, who was married to Gunn at the time, spoke about a sequence for the Romero remake that ultimately never came to fruition. Here’s how she describes it:

There was a scene from Dawn of the Dead that didn’t get shot. It was a brilliant zombie dog scene, but it was too expensive. Basically, the guys send their dog out to get guns from the guy across the street. They had a lot of dogs from the pet store in the mall that they were sending over, and all the people are on the roof watching and are going, ‘It’s working! It’s working! The dogs are coming back!’  And all of a sudden there’s a rumble, like thunder, and a horde of zombie dogs descend upon the living dogs and start ripping them apart. Only one dog makes it back with guns.

Sounds almost like something out of Paul W.S. Anderson’s Resident Evil, which had come out only a couple years prior!

Now, I have to ask all of you about your thoughts here. What do you think of zombie animals? Do you think it’s an interesting way to expand the zombie universe and add an element of danger to all living things? Or is it something that generates no interest in you? Let me know in the comments!

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