New Line to Release Plane Dead as Flight of the Living Dead
I can recall hearing about the movie Plane Dead at some point last year, and of course, at the time everyone was jokingly referring to it as “Zombies on a Plane”. And understandably so. It looked like a low budget horror movie that would never have received any mainstream attention if not for the fact that it took place on a plane. Now it looks like New Line Entertainment thinks there may be a market for this little flick, as they have picked up the U.S. distribution rights and decided to release it under a new name: Flight of the Living Dead.
Now, the unfortunate thing about this is that there is already an online comic book series called Flight of the Living Dead. The creator Scott Ewen has contacted New Line and asked them to reconsider, but apparently they are not backing down. “I have been talking to the producers of the movie for the past week, and they are releasing the movie with that title despite my wishes,” he says on his MySpace blog. On the other hand though, this is likely to bring more attention to his comic anyway. He also confirms that the movie will go direct to DVD, which means it will probably not get released in theatres except for a few announced festival screenings. For more info on the Flight of the Living Dead, and to see a trailer, head over to the official site at www.planedeadthemovie.com.
Comments (3)
Scott was one of my roommates while I was attending the Kubert School for the past three years and I’ve been keeping up with the news about his online comic. The people responsible for the film have been jerks about the entire situation and refuse to change the name. Since the film doesn’t appear as though it’s going to make too many waves it doesn’t seem like such a big deal, but Scott’s comic is always going to have it hanging over it’s head whenever anyone hears the name now. It truly sucks to be a struggling artist.
Posted by Rian on May 8th, 2007Just to make one thing clear, the producer contacted me trying to get me to sign over rights to the name, I didn’t call New Line. And I don’t know if you could say I confirmed it’s going direct-to-DVD, that’s just what I was told, but I haven’t spoken to the producers in weeks so I don’t know if that’s still true.
Rian’s right, my main problem with this is that my comic is tainted now because of its connection with a movie I had nothing to do with. There are going to be people who assume my comic is a rip-off of the movie, or an adaptation, which is frustrating because mine came first. I tried to explain this to the producers on the phone, but they didn’t understand why anyone would confuse my comic with their film, despite both having the same title and premise.
Posted by Scott Ewen on May 8th, 2007Hey Scott, thanks for the update. I guess in some ways I’m impressed that they actually contacted you first. But of course, it seems pretty clear that they didn’t have any intentions of changing the name even if you didn’t agree to sign it over.
I understand your frustration, but on the bright side, this could be a chance for more publicity for you and you should think about how best to capitalize on it. You could make a big media blitz about how they are stealing the name from you. Digg and other such sites are always interested in stories about corporations screwing over the little guy.
Either way, I found your comic because I googled “Flight of the Living Dead”, so I think that’s proof that it’s already giving you exposure. Good luck.
Posted by Sean on May 8th, 2007Leave a Reply