Sci-Fi Film and Television Developments

Zombies of Mass Destruction

6/29/09 – SCI FI Wire reported that director Kevin Hamedani said he was pleasantly surprised by the audience reaction after him film, Zombies of Mass Destruction, premiered at the L.A. Film Festival last week. He said he learned a lot about making zombie movies from his mentor, zombie impresario Romero.  "Yeah, I wanted it to be funny, but not campy," Hamedani said. "This follows an Iranian-American girl who gets blamed for being a terrorist because of the outbreak of this zombie virus. This is a lot like the reactions toward me, an Iranian-American, after 9/11. Yeah, there's a lot of social satire you can get away with, talking about the prejudices and things like that. Usually, when you have a gay character or someone like that, they get killed off early, and we change a lot of that."  He also keeps it in the family. His best friend from the University of Washington film school, Serve Sarkis, is the producer. "We did this for about a half million, and we wanted to reach a wider audience with it," Sarkis said. "We picked zombies instead of vampires because zombies don't have personalities."  Hamedani's real-life feather, Ali Hamedani, also has a role: He plays the Iranian father of the lead girl, Frida (played by Janette Armand). "I had a hard time convincing him to do it, but he had a restaurant, and I thought he'd do a good job, and sure enough, he did," Kevin said.  Special effects for a zombie movie are also important, and the director's favorite kill was "the scene where a guy's face gets ripped off," he said. "I was pleased with the way that came out."

2/9/09 - Dirk Blackman and Howard McCain have been hired to adapt the Red 5 comic ZMD: Zombies of Mass Destruction for Benderspink, according to The Hollywood Reporter.  The comic, created by Kevin Grevioux, follows an elite team of soldiers sent on a covert operation into hostile territory in the Middle East to stop what they soon discover to be a government-created army of the undead.  Benderspink's Jake Weiner and Josh Feldman are overseeing the project.

7/23/08 - Benderspink has acquired the film rights to the horror comic book ZMD: Zombies of Mass Destruction by Kevin Grevioux.  The project revolves around a government weapons program that drops photosensitive zombies into war zones at night to destroy the enemy population.

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