Trivia
The group in the mall had named the two parking shuttles; the first one, holding Nicole, CJ, Michael, and Ana was named The Pinta, the one carrying Terry, Kenneth, Steve, Glen and Monica was named The Santa Maria.
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Actors Ken Foree, Scott H. Reiniger and Tom Savini all appeared in the original 1978 version of this film, but playing different characters. Ken Foree delivers the tagline he delivered as "Peter" from the 1978 version of Dawn of the Dead; "When there's no more room in Hell, the dead will walk the Earth."
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An extra on the DVD release for this film, "We interrupt this program", a fake newscast depicting the start and spread of the zombie infection, contains some characters whose dialog consists of lines from the original Dawn of the Dead and Night of the Living Dead.
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According to "the lost tape", which contains gun shop owner Andy's personal video diary (accessible as a bonus feature on the director's cut DVD), the main characters arrive at the mall early in the movie on May the 9th. Therefore, the movie opens a day earlier on May the 8th (Andy mentions that attacks on citizens by the undead had already started on the 7th). Andy makes his last entry just before he turns into one of the undead on June the 6th, and the movie ends on that same day (not including the footage during the end credits). This places the events of Dawn of the Dead in a space of just 29 days - and it begins and ends at dawn.
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According to the director, Zack Snyder, on the DVD commentary he states that Scott Frank and Michael Tolkin both did uncredited rewrites on the script.
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Director Zack Snyder personally chose most of the music used in the film. His choices included "The Man Comes Around" by Johnny Cash, and Richard Cheese's cover of Disturbed's "Down With the Sickness". Snyder was the only person who thought these songs should be in the film, as most of the producers were against it.
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The scene between Sarah Polley (Ana), Mekhi Phifer (Andre), Jayne Eastwood (Norma), and Kim Poirier (Monica) at the Hallowed Grounds Café was re-written in order to include actress Kim Poirier to give her more screen time since director Zack Snyder and producer Eric Newman enjoyed her performance so much. However, her character's name is never once mentioned throughout the entire film. Also most unfortunate, a lot of her dialog scenes were trimmed or eliminated from the film, such as the dinner scene.
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Members of Rue-Morgue Magazine, a Canadian-based publication had cameos as zombies in the film.
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The WGON traffic copter makes an appearance. The WGON traffic copter was the main transportation for the survivor in the original Dawn of the Dead.
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One of the invoices in "Andy's Gun Works" is made out to Nicholas Gazda who is the first assistant art director of this movie.
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Some of the trucks outside the mall are from the same company, B.P. Trucking, that loaned them to the production of the original 1978 film.
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One of the clothing stores in the mall is named "Gaylen Ross". Gaylen Ross played the part of Fran in the original Dawn of the Dead.
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The name of Ving Rhames' character, Kenneth, is an obvious nod to actor Ken Foree, who played a very similar role in the original Dawn of the Dead.
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A UK MTV Host, Alex Zane, is featured during the zombies' rampage through the mall. After interviewing Zack Snyder he was invited to be in the film, thus as we see the zombies running past the camera once they've entered the mall, he is clad in a bright white checkered shirt.
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The mall scenes of the film as well as the rooftop scenes were shot in the Thornhill Square Shopping Centre in Thornhill, Ontario and the rest of the scenes were shot in the Aileen-Willowbrook Neighborhood of Thornhill, and the Township of Caledon East, Ontario. The set for Ana and Louis's bedroom was constructed in a back room of the mall. The mall was defunct, which is the reason the production used it; the movie crew completely renovated the structure, and stocked it with fictitious stores after Starbucks Coffee and numerous other corporations refused to let their names be used (two exceptions to this are Roots and Panasonic). Most of the mall was demolished shortly after the film was shot. The highway in the overhead composite shot of Ana driving past the exploding gas station is HWY 50, one kilometer south of Bolton, Ontario. The Crossroads Mall is a small strip-mall at the intersection of HWY 9 and HWY 27 just north of Caledon East. The second converted mall shuttle (with the fire damage) was shipped out of Bolton in the summer of 2006.
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The first scene in the basement finishes when Michael burns the zombies with fuel from the gas station and CJ's lighter. This is a reference to a similar scene in George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead.
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For the scene where Ana stitches Kenneth's wounds, the director hired a real nurse for the close-ups. She misunderstood the director's directions to go deeper and inadvertently punctured Ving Rhames' skin and stitched the prosthesis to his arm. He didn't say anything until after the scene was done filming and the director thought the blood was merely "a really good effect".
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The commercial on the TV when it switches to the "special report" near the beginning of the film is a commercial for a Subaru WRX that Zack Snyder directed.
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The cause of the dead returning to life is not completely explained in the film. On the back of the DVD box, it is said to be a virus.
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In an aerial scene in the first 10 minutes when Ana is driving down a highway, a truck can be seen crashing into a gas station/diner. This is a reference to Night of the Living Dead, as Ben mentions he was listening to a radio in a truck in a diner parking lot when a truck crashed into the gas pumps.
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The movie trailer shows Andre checking the mall entrance when several zombies attack the outer doors. This scene was replaced in the film with a subdued version showing only one frail-looking zombie pouncing on the glass door. However, the clip used in the theatrical trailer is available for viewing on the DVD and has director commentary explaining why he changed the scene.
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The word "zombie" is never used in the film. However, the unrated, Special Edition DVD contains the word in the back-cover text describing the film's plotline.
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The "video" shots shown in the final credits were not shot in Toronto. This ending was added after filming was complete and was shot at Catalina Island, California.
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One of the most gruesome "zombies" (the bloated woman killed with a fireplace poker) was actually played by a man.
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While they are stocking up on ammunition in the gun store, the music from the gun store in the original film can be heard playing very lightly in the background.
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An exchange between Kim Poirier (Monica) and Lindy Booth (Nicole) about Nicole playing with the dog more than she is helping was eliminated from the film in order to avoid making Kim Poirier's character sound "too bitchy."
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The music playing in the mall when the survivors first arrive is a variation of Bobby McFerrin's "Don't Worry Be Happy".
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Former MTV/MTV2 VJ Iann Robinson has an uncredited cameo as a zombie. When first entering the mall, the group is charged by an Asian man-turned-zombie. The large zombie behind the Asian man is played by Robinson.
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The ending of the movie continues throughout the credits by a series of brief video clips.
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This is the first movie to broadcast the first ten minutes uncut on network TV, five days before its nationwide release. The showing was broadcast on the USA network, and on Channel 4 in the UK with a special introduction by film critic (and major horror fan) Mark Kermode.
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The movie premiere was hosted at the Beverly Centre Mall in Los Angeles, with cast and crew in attendance.
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Title designer Kyle Cooper used actual human blood when designing the film's opening and closing credit sequences.
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The two zombies with missing limbs (the jogger missing an arm and the legless zombie in the parking garage) were both played by actual amputees. The same thing was done for one of the first zombies seen in the original Dawn of the Dead.
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Some of the video clips in the opening credits were actual stock news footage, such as the scene of a truck driving into a crowd of people.
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According to the director's commentary, when you see the shot of the truck exploding into the petrol station the helicopter in the sky is a shot from the original that was added in post-production.
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Make-up designer David LeRoy Anderson scoured forensic books and crime scene photos for ideas on how best to convey death and decay.
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Different colors of blood were used for zombies in different stages of decomposition: red for the recently dead, a browner version for the ones that have been dead for a few weeks; and a blacker, oilier version for the ones that have been dead for a considerable period of time.
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The production had a blood cart on set all day due to the excessive amounts of fake blood being used.
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As many as 50 make-up artists would be working on transforming actors into zombies for the days that required crowd scenes.
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This was due to be released in the UK in the same week as the similar Shaun of the Dead. UIP elected to push back the latter's release date for 2 weeks.
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A veteran of largely independent films, Sarah Polley was surprised at how physical her role turned out to be. She said she had never run so much in any of her previous movies.
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The name Wooley's Diner comes from the name of the SWAT team leader in the original film.
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Universal significantly slashed the film's budget after the failure of House of the Dead, fearing there was no public appetite for zombie movies.
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A lot of the actors playing zombies were carrying remotes in their hand to discharge a blood cannon placed on their back. This would activate an explosion of blood behind them, to simulate the effect of a gunshot to the head.
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Some of the camera crew would wear plastic sheeting during the filming of some of the gorier scenes, due to the amount of fake blood flying around.
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With an opening weekend take of $26.7 million, "Dawn of the Dead" recouped its $28 million budget in its first 3 days of release.
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Zack Snyder said that the reason his zombies run at full speed is because he wanted to avoid the inherent comic impression given by slow, shuffling undead.
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When Ving Rhames heard of a remake of Dawn of the Dead was in production, he tracked down producers to be in the film.
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Although he had strong reservations about some elements, George A. Romero professed to be surprisingly impressed with the film.
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The DVD box text implies that the cause of the zombie plague is a virus. But in an interview on FeoAmante.com screenwriter James Gunn denies the virus theory, stating that a zombie bite is like a vampire bite. Thus the plague is supernatural, not scientific.
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In the opening scene, where Ana is driving with an overhead view, and the two cars collide to hit the gas pump, a helicopter is seen flying through the air. This is a replica of the helicopter used in the original Dawn of the Dead.
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Visible in Luda's room is a can of something called "Smeat" - a takeoff on Spam. Smeat had previously appeared in Waterworld. The Smeat can here is circular, however - in Waterworld, the cans were rectangular, like Spam cans.
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Though it was never specified in the movie, the character of Glen (R.D. Reid) supposedly died of a broken neck.
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Director Cameo
Zack Snyder:
a member of a commando unit (with shades holding an assault weapon) in front of the Capitol Building in Washington, DC. This scene can be seen during the opening credits montage of video/news clips of zombie attacks.
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Spoilers
The zombie baby scene was originally going to portray the baby killing the mother. It was altered due to its graphic nature.
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When Andy meets his demise, it seems that his head explosion was a CGI constructed effect, however it was done using a prosthetic head, modeled on the actor, this can be seen on the director's cut DVD extras.
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For the graphic scene in which Monica is accidentally chainsawed to death, a full body cast was made of actress Kim Poirier which included a reloadable cartridge down the area that was to be chainsawed. This was then packed solid with bloodbags. This meant that the cartridge could be taken out and reloaded for each take.
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