Editing Day of the Dead (1985 film) (section)

===Development===
Romero originally intended the film to be "the ''[[Gone with the Wind (film)|Gone with the Wind]]'' of zombie films".<ref name="FI">{{cite web|url=https://www.homepageofthedead.com/films/day/filming.html|title=Day of the Dead - The Filming|website=Homepage of the Dead|access-date=2008-01-03}}</ref> Following budget disputes and the artistic need to release the film unrated, the budget of the film was cut in half, dropping from $7 million to $3.5 million.<ref name="FI" /> This forced Romero to scale back his story, rewriting the script and adjusting his original vision to fit the smaller budget.

A total of five scripts were written as Romero wrestled with the film's concepts and the budgetary constraints. The first draft was over 200 pages, which he later condensed to a shorter page count. This is the true original script, and to date no copies of it have come to light. This version was likely rejected because UFDC felt it was too expensive for them to produce even with an R rating. Romero subsequently scaled down the scope of this script into a 155-page draft (often erroneously referred to as the original version), then condensed it again to a 104-page draft labeled the "second version, second draft" in an unsuccessful final attempt to get the story within budget parameters. When this failed, he drastically altered the original story concept and ultimately produced a shooting draft that numbered only 88 pages.

The film was given a very limited release.<ref name="FI" /> This is chronicled in the documentary ''The Many Days of 'Day of the Dead{{'}}'' on the two-disc [[Anchor Bay Entertainment|Anchor Bay]] special edition DVD of the film.<ref name="FI" /> Some of the original concepts and characters remain, but the film differs greatly from Romero's original script,<ref>{{cite web|title=DAY OF THE DEAD (The original script) by George A. Romero|url=http://www.horrorlair.com/scripts/dayofthedead.txt|website=HorrorLair.com|access-date=2008-01-05|archive-date=August 18, 2008|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080818114327/http://www.horrorlair.com/scripts/dayofthedead.txt|url-status=dead}}</ref> as stated by actress [[Lori Cardille]]:
{{blockquote|He could've made me this sexy little twit bouncing around with a gun:- much more the sexual element. But he made her intelligent and strong. In fact, whenever I would try and make her a little more emotional, he would not allow me to do that.<ref name="FI" />}}