Trivia / Dawn of the Dead (2004)

• Approval of God: George A. Romero claimed to be very impressed with the film, though found the running zombies to not be scary.
  • Subverted as Romero also stated that he fell off the film and lost interest by the second half.
• Awesome, Dear Boy: Ving Rhames lobbied hard for the role of Kenneth and sought out producers as soon as he heard they were remaking Dawn of the Dead. Sarah Polley was likewise a fan of the original and signed on for this reason.
• Canada Doubling: Milwaukee, Wisconsin is played by Toronto, Brampton, and Caledon, Ontario. The mall is played by Thornhill Square Shopping Centre in York Municipality, which was already closed by the time of filming and was demolished shortly thereafter.
• Completely Different Title: The film is called L'Armée des Morts in French. Which caused a problem short of two decades later since it literally means Army of the Dead, which is the title of Zack Snyder's next zombie film. The latter's original title was kept in English on the French version of Netflix as a result.
• Creator's Favorite: Monica was actually one of the favorite characters, with Zack Snyder and producer Eric Newman being really impressed with Kim Poirier's (Monica's actress) performance. At least one scene was rewritten just to include her, and Snyder dropped a line of dialogue for her that would make her seem too bitchy. Unfortunately a lot of her scenes were either trimmed or cut, to the point where the character's name isn't even spoken in the final version of the film.
• The Danza: Ana's boyfriend Luis is played by Louis (Luís) Ferreira.
• Duelling Movies: With Shaun of the Dead, a British comedy about zombies. The latter's release was pushed back two weeks because of this.
• Executive Meddling: Universal significantly slashed the budget after the failure of House of the Dead, fearing there was no public appetite for zombie movies.
• Fake American: Sarah Polley (Canadian) as Ana.
  • Most of the cast is Canadian, while Jake Weber (Michael) is English. The only American actors are Ving Rhames (Kenneth), Mekhi Phifer (Andre), Ty Burrell (Steve), Michael Kelly (CJ), and the cast of the original film making cameos.
• Focus Group Ending: Extra footage was shot and interspersed with the credits after test audiences complained about the original abrupt ending.
• Playing Against Type: Sarah Polley had mostly done gritty dramas before this. Here she's an Action Survivor in a horror movie. She likewise said she was surprised at how physical her role was - saying she'd never run so much for a film before.
• Throw It In!: The other car screeching to a halt as Ana drives through her neighborhood gone to hell.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Luda would originally have been killed by her own child. This was changed for being considered too graphic.
  • Nathan Fillion auditioned for the role of Michael.
  • When developing the script, the producers had Diane Lane in mind to play Ana.
  • An earlier draft was set in Pennsylvania, like the original film.
  • Originally, zombie dogs were going to be featured as another obstacle for the survivors to fight against in this movie.
• Word of God: It's not shown what kills Glen as his body is only shown after the bus crashes. According to Snyder, he died of a broken neck.

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