@dowingba: And yet, if he doesn't give two shits that the game is similar to DotD, then shouldn't that convey that a lawsuit that they are placing in order to 'protect' the license is pretty useless anyway, since he doesn't care that the two IPs are similar? I mean, since they are supposed to be acting 'in HIS best interests' and all?

I know, it makes no legal sense, and they could just use the excuse 'this lawsuit is a warning to others who want to try and get close to this concept' or something along those lines, but it should make them rethink how they're taking the lawsuit way out of control. I mean, heck, they could just go and sue Capcom again just because of the use of zombies in the Resident Evil franchise.

And another thing that doesn't make much sense to me, the game only shares three things with DotD: setting, antagonist (the broad spectrum) and possibly ending (GTFO before it's too late!). I could see them getting all butthurt if it was a blatant ripoff (make the game exactly like DotD plot and everything, but change names), but it's not. I remember no camera-wielding, oddly-jumping protagonist with a cockatiel hairstyle. I remember no bovine overarching plots.

Paladin58

@PapaBear434: And that was for saying it was "freaking awesome" right? What did you do to him for not knowing about the Romero movies?

Pornosaur

Overheard in a Gamestop up here in Michigan the other day. Said by a 15/16 year old with what I assume to be his friend.

Man, Dead Rising was a freaking awesome game! Someone should really make a movie based on it. That would be AWESOME.

It made me die a little inside. Ok, it made me die a lot inside. The only thing that makes me feel better is the knowledge that the savage beating I gave him with an old X-Box controller will likely keep him in pain for years to come.

PapaBear434

Dead Rising had the potential to be one of the greatest games ever but was ruined because of the blinding incompetence of its developer. Dead Rising 2 will hopefully just be GTAIV with a zombie-infested city (like the city from Day of the Dead) with no janitors and no wristwatches.

GogolGants

I thought the MKR group didn't have anything to do with Romero but just owns the naming rights to his "Dead" franchise pre Land of the Dead. It's like how companies like Anchor Bay end up with such a huge catalogue of movies, all that great giant VHS box horror from the mid 80's can be bought on the cheap. I don't really care since I'm the biggest zombie fan around and Dead Rising was such a horribly implemented game for the graphics and premise. Capcom should be sued for it. Now if it prevents a Dead Rising 2 that is at least playable that makes me sad.

Pornosaur

I love the sticker that reads: "This game was not developed, approved by licenced by the owners or creators of George A Romero's Dawn of the Dead".

I expect both versions of the film will now come with a similar statement, as, lets face it, the one thing this is not about is cashing in on a successful licence, and grabbing cheap advertising while one waits around to remake/rerelease the film AGAIN.

Wouldn't want to speak for George A Romero himself, but owners of George A Romero's Dawn of the Dead would ever piggyback on the successes of others.

oskarkeo

It would be awesome if Mister Romero bought a copy of Dead Rising, popped it into a 360 and proceeded to fall in love with the game. And then joined the lawsuit on Capcom's side.

And was then invited to work on Dead Rising 2, thus making it fucking awesome, even if it is in the hands of some unknown American development group.

...........................

Please, mystery company - don't make my Dead Rising 2 suck!!!!!!

sir_carrot

I'm jealous I want to meet him.

Murderdolls

Haha I knew old Georgie was oblivious to all this. Hopefully the team "fighting for his license" will see that the game has nothing to do with the dead series at all other then zombies, mall, and human nature.

Kaizuden

People. Maybe the whole point of the MKR group is to protect the Dawn of the Dead license (and whatever other licenses they are associated with) so that Romero doesn't have to. This type of thing is pretty common, and it doesn't mean the MKR group are "assholes".

It'd be a stretch to say that Dead Rising doesn't borrow alot from Dawn of the Dead. So this lawsuit doesn't seem all that strange to me.

dowingba

@sladee:

Why would it be less valuble? To who?
Most used games are never that valuble, to begin with. Even though he had nothing to do with the game, I would think his sig. on the case would add extra nostaligia, or novelty, or something.
It's one of a kind and now has a story.
Sounds worth something to me.

SadSadSamus

He'd be in idiot to sell that if the lawsuit goes through and wins... think of the irony value on ebay... it's a fortune.

actually, it might even be evidence against the case now... lol.

Murdoc

A truly awesome game and an even more awesome dude. Never did get the right ending when I finished it but I plan to spend a whole night watching Shaun of the Dead then trying to beat Dead Rising with ending A.

Nexus6

@sladee: He could just be getting it autographed for fun. I doubt he's trying to sell it.

DarkLinkinfinite

@TheWiicast: Oh man. That's incredible.

Brian Ashcraft

That kind of makes MKR Group look like a bunch of assholes methinks. Of course, we all already knew that.

budash2

The game was really nice and the sue was completely stupid. Since the game has nothing to do with the movie (despite the fact that has zombies). :)

Btw, Nice sign.

bubble-bee

Yay, more blood-thirst lawyers trying to get their filthy claws into the inflating gaming industry! Go team sell-out!

Beyond-Infinity

@leetXcore: Yeah. Fucking asshole kept calling with that annoying ringtone when I'm struggling to get away from dozens of zombies hell-bent on chomping my level 3 ass. There were so many things wrong with Dead Rising and they only become more forgivable (wait I mean bearable) when you replay the game at level 25 or something. THAT'S when the fun starts.

garytek

I hope this so called MKR group ends up as zombie chow. . .

PITwelve

honestly he probably has no clue the studio that owns it is trying to sue because he probably wouldn't see a dime of anything gotten off it. he probably gets royalties for the movie but not for lawsuits resulting from the movie.

honestly most heads of companies probably don't know half the shit going on within their own companies when it comes to stuff like lawsuits and such. that's why they pay their lawyers the bigs bucks.

demonknightinuyasha

He's Awesome. I got to have lunch with him in Austin for an Alamo Drafthouse event. I asked him about his RE script that was rejected and he got really defensive. He said it was really faithful to the first game and said the studio wanted something more edgy. UGH. Oh, he never ate anything at the lunch, just drank glass after glass of J&B. That man is awesome.

TheWiicast

yeah, he doesn't. NOTD is free reign for anything damn near. It's kind of messed up with the rights to the franchise.

akilshohen

@sladee: kojima also did signed a cigarette pack.

sladee

Romero actually doesn't own the rights to some of the "Dead" movies

hitokirimaru

that signature could be a fake, i don't see a date nor a picture (video) actually signing it. I don't want to be harsh. But he still had nothing to do with this game so it may be less valuable. George Romero did do work for capcom resident evil 2 so that would qualify helping out. George Romero could of made good resident evil rated R.

sladee

He sounds like a swell guy, and I did enjoy Land of the Dead. Kind of makes me wish he came over here to sign stuff...

Pezdispenser

Are you talking to Otis?

I hate Otis.

leetXcore

thats badass, i wish i could meet famous movie directors and actors (i have met rappers though so its all good :))

D3m0n1k_Ang3l

I think the MKR Group needs to loosen it's sphincters a bit. If the creator of the damn franchise doesn't mind, why should they? If anything, Dead Rising is an homage to Dawn of the Dead.

mphz

He's old.

riffleraffle

Just another bunch of greedy higher-ups or something??

Katorok

Wow, that's sweet.

themadman123

If you guys haven't seen it, I highly recommend checking out one of Romero's overlooked classics, "Martin" (1977). It's a surreal "vampire" movie, where the only paranormal thing going on is in the delusions of the protagonist's paranoid mind. Or is it?

topaz420

i really want to play dead rising.

but i dont have a 360 and they just dont seem to want to release it for PC. darn it !

cant they make one for the Wii ? :(

Mr.Sad

@DarkLinkinfinite: I have absolutely no intention of selling it.

prodld50

@sladee: Tyler here. I assure you it is not fake. I don't know what else i can say besides that to convince you.

prodld50

I'm a big fan of George Romero and the Dead Series I think he doesn't know to much about the law suit and to me it's today BS. I bought Dead Rising and had a ton of fun with it and I was hoping to see a sequel but I'm not sure if they will make one with all this happening.

Stevetrop

@GogolGants: No wristwatch would kill that game? I was so thrilled to finally have a game when an NPC saying, "Hurry up and perform [Action X]!" actually meant something, not "Perform [Action X] when you get around to it, because it will always be there for you."

Dirk Dorkelson

@Paladin58: Hmm well others would disagree with you about the similarities. Not least of whom would be Capcom, who put that disclaimer on the cover of the box.

dowingba

This demonstrates the tremendous disconnect between the creator of a work and the legal owner of that work. We all think of movies as being property of their director, or possibly the producer, but in reality the rights of that film (or television show, or video game, etc.) are owned by a separate entity. While I think that's a shame in many senses, because who better to know what's best for Dawn of the Dead than George Romero, in some ways I understand it. After all, if I made a movie would I really want the responsibility of tracking down pirates and rip-offs around the world?

feitclub

Romero doesn't know about the lawsuit because it's MKR's bag and they don't have to tell him crap. They bought the rights to the movies long ago and while he still probably get's royalties, he doesn't have any real control over what happens to them now. It's even so bad that in a recent interview he said that he had to pay MKR to use Tom Savini's biker zombie character from Dawn of the Dead in Land of the Dead. And the hassle that it took to get that done would probably keep him from introducing the human version of Bub in the Diary of the Dead sequel like he wants to.

@topaz420:
Martin is a fantastic movie.

XerxenK

oh, wait sequel..

basseman

Diary of the dead, is done.

basseman

FYI, Romero has no formal connection with MKR Group. MKR Group is a holding company of the producer who got him to sign over the rights to a lot of his earlier works at the time they were made.

MKR Group does not work on behalf or Romero, or even in his interests. It acts in the interests of the producer and Romero sees nothing (or virtually nothing) of what comes of it.

eakolb

This is what happens when artists don't have control of their own work. Some one else can sue even if the artist doesn't particularly care.

slimpickens42

@TheWiicast: But instead we got those nice POS RE movies that try to pass themselves off as cinema.

SotanahtDarksol

Romero is so used to Capcom taking his ideas by now that he probably finds it humorous. Right after he was kicked off the Resident Evil film project, a quote was attributed to him stating that the game was pretty much just a mishmash of his ideas anyway, so he might as well write the movie.

Not that I'm siding with him, mind you (even though a Romero-led RE film would have been ten times better than what we got, his current body of work notwithstanding). He didn't necessarily CREATE zombies so much as he brought them into the modern horror canon. What I am saying, however, is that Capcom just needs to bite the bullet and let the man have his own game. Not like that "Land of the Dead" crap, but let him direct a Capcom team and make a zombie game, Romero style.

He's expressed his distaste for storytelling in games in the past, but I think he'd do it if the right deal were on the table.

Johnny_Under

With that handwriting I would be scared too. Still, cool of Romero to sign it.

Shinryoma

The next movie should be set in a huge high-rise owned by the MKR Group.

V.Volker

George Romero's latest works have been pretty terrible. The 28 franchise and the Dawn of the Dead remake have both been what modern zombie flicks should have evolved into. Even Planet Terror had its charm. Diary of the Dead was just awful though and Land of the Dead came pretty close to being good but fell short.

All IMO of course.

I lub my zombies.

Talleyrand

Anyone who has followed Romero's career and listened to him talk about his films and just the industry in general should know that he couldn't care less what the studio was doing. While he wouldn't go out of his way to shoot down the lawsuit he wouldn't begrudge people from paying homage or even ripping off ideas from his films for their own stuff.

Tull

Romero has a sad history of having his early works exploited. In fact, the original "Night of the Living Dead" is actually in the public domain because of the incompetence of original theatrical distributor who accidentally forgot to put copyright notices on the theatrical prints.

And while he has no control over what MKR does and probably will not see any benefit from it, his autographing the game in no way indicates he endorses it or does not view it as an infringement of his earlier work.

He was unfamiliar with the game and without him actually seeing it in action, he can't exactly make an informed opinion, can he?

Still I think that if he did play it or see it, he probably would not care. He's always been a good sport about people being inspired by his work, and he appreciates the fact that he has a legacy.

He freely admits that he borrowed ideas from Richard Matheson and "I am Legend" when he made NOLD, and I think that admission guides how he approaches works that are derivative of his own.

And it should be noted that while he did not invent Zombies, he was the first to portray them as slow moving and human flesh eating, among other details which have stuck around to this day.

chinesedentist

Diary of the Dead was great. That is all.

Time to go back and put Frank in that pimp suit i downloaded...

Eville1

It sounds believable but you guys have to realize that even George Romero and MKR are two different entities (which some of you have). One is the man himself the other is run by a bunch of other people which probably include George Romero himself.

PirateMan

oh he WAS aware

drevid

Lately his movie have been pretty weak but that doesn't make him any less of an awesome guy :)

GreyFoxV1

Ep!c Win
I Am Jealous
:(

DarthWind

Thats pretty sweet dude, keep that shit safe.

thePhilosopher

I believe Romero was largely cut out of the loop financially on the Dead Series years ago by DAWN OF THE DEAD's original producer, Richard Rubinstein, and his company (now called MKR Group). Believe they retain all the rights to DAWN and DAY OF THE DEAD (1985) now. I think I read that George got custody of the "of the Dead" title for his future use. Something like that.

But this whole MKR suing over Dead Rising thing doesn't surprise me one bit. That Rubinstein guy doesn't mess around, man. True story, years ago I published a tiny little homespun Romero/Dead films fanzine, and in it, sold a Dawn t-shirt (I was buying them in small bunches wholesale from Hollywood Book & Poster), and somehow Rubinstein saw it. I quickly got a rather stern letter from him telling me that they loved zine! Annnd... that they'd now be needing a percentage of all the tees I had already sold, plus a percentage on all future sales (or I'd have to stop selling them).

He demanded to know where I got them from (said they were being produced illegally--this was 1996) and exactly how many I'd sold to that point so we could work out how much I owed his company (the Dawn rights holders). I think I had sold like 3 or 4 in about as many months. And I did need to cut them a teeny weeny check for some percentage on those, lol. Some months later I told Romero about this on the phone (I was arranging an interview) and he laughed heartily and said "Really? Ah, come on! Well, what're ya gonna do, man, right?!".

But what the heck, that's business. The guy was just protecting his interests (as he does today like with the Dead Rising game, which is very similar to Dawn's overall trip). But it still hurt my wittle feelings at the time (and taught me some valuable business and life lessons).

"I'll never get sick of zombies. I just get sick of producers." --George A. Romero

MonsterMan

If the original film is in the public domain then the creators of Dead Rising could argue that this was based on that work and no other, and they'd be in the free and clear.

The same goes for The Wizard of OZ. Anyone can use any of the characters or situations from the original book, since it's in the public domain. If you do though you better make sure those slippers are silver not ruby though. The shoes are silver in the book, but ruby in the movie, MGM owns the rights to anything that was in the movie, but not the book, including, but not limited to, the ruby slippers.

slimpickens42

A zombie genre movie directer had no clue about a zombie video game? *GASP!*

Sheesh you people swear. Its not like the directors to Saving Private Ryan or Black Hawk Down all know about every frikn' popular War video game out.

King Seafoam

George A Romero pssts me off SO MUCH!!!! I mean, I love Dawn of the Dead but everything else he touches just turns to crap.

Syndicated Terence

Well we cannot deny that Dead Rising is soooooo inspired in Romero´s film, so his lawyers want some extra cash.

This was like when some dude wanted Miyamoto to sign his psp.

HDgam3r

@dowingba-agreed
If my memory serves right, I believe Dead Rising even had a disclaimer at the beginning stating that the game is not related to Romero's Dawn of the Dead. With that being said, of course Dead Rising borrows from Dawn of the Dead and deserves to be sued for it! Capcom should have went after the license.

H3lloWorld

@slimpickens42: "Night of the Living Dead" is in the public domain. "Dawn of the Dead" isn't.

chinesedentist