Editing Night of the Living Dead (section)

=== Writing ===
[[File:Zombies NightoftheLivingDead.jpg|thumb |alt=A group of actors in zombie makeup shamble across the unlit lawn of the farmhouse. |Ghouls swarm around the house, searching for living [[Human cannibalism|human flesh]].]]
The script was co-written by Russo and Romero. They abandoned an early [[Horror comedy (genre)|horror comedy]] concept about adolescent aliens,{{sfn|Kane|2010|p=23}} after realizing they would not have the budget to create a convincing spaceship.{{sfn|Kane|2010|p=21}} Russo proposed a more constrained narrative where a young man runs away from home and discovers aliens harvesting human corpses for food in a cemetery.{{sfn|Russo|1985|pages=31, 61}}{{sfn|Kane|2010|pp=20–24}} Romero combined this idea with an unpublished short story about flesh-eating ghouls,{{sfn|Bishop|2006|p=199}} and they began filming with an incomplete script.{{sfn|Peary|1981|p=227}}{{sfn|Kane|2010|p=23}} According to Russo, the screenplay written prior to filming only covered events up to the emergence of the Cooper family.{{sfn|Surmacz|1975|p=16}} Russo completed the script while filming and Romero later expanded the final pages of his short story into the sequels ''[[Dawn of the Dead (1978 film)|Dawn of the Dead]]'' (1978) and ''[[Day of the Dead (1985 film)|Day of the Dead]]'' (1985).<ref>{{cite interview |last=Romero |first=George A. |title=George A. Romero Interview |work=Forbidden Weekend |publisher=BBC2 |date=February 2, 1997}}</ref>

Romero drew inspiration from [[Richard Matheson]]'s ''[[I Am Legend (novel)|I Am Legend]]'' (1954),{{sfn|Dinello|2006|p=257}}{{efn|Official film adaptations of Matheson's novel include ''[[The Last Man on Earth (1964 film)|The Last Man on Earth]]'' (1964), ''[[The Omega Man]]'' (1971), and the 2007 release ''[[I Am Legend (film)|I Am Legend]]''.}} a [[horror fiction|horror novel]] about a [[Epidemic|plague]] that ravages a futuristic Los Angeles. The infected in ''I Am Legend'' become [[vampire]]-like creatures and prey on the uninfected.{{sfn|Paffenroth|2006|pp=138–143}}{{sfn|Russo|1985|pages=6–7}}<ref>{{cite book |author=Matheson, Richard |author-link=Richard Matheson |title=I Am Legend |orig-year=1954 |publisher=Orb Books |year=1995 |isbn=978-0-312-86504-7}}</ref> Matheson described Romero's interpretation as "kind of cornball",{{sfn|Weaver|1999|p=307}} and more theft than homage.<ref>{{cite magazine |first=Clark |last=Collis |title=An Author You Can't Refuse |url=https://ew.com/article/2007/11/30/richard-mathesons-latest-sci-fi-project/ |magazine=[[Entertainment Weekly]] |date=December 7, 2007 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180731002331/http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20164028,00.html |archive-date=July 31, 2018}}</ref> In an interview, Romero contrasted ''Night of the Living Dead'' with ''I Am Legend''. He explained that Matheson wrote about the aftermath of a complete global upheaval; Romero wanted to explore how people would respond to that kind of disaster as it developed.<ref>{{cite web |first=Marianna |last=McConnell |url=https://cinemablend.com/new/Interview-George-A-Romero-On-Diary-Of-The-Dead-7818.html |title=Interview: George A. Romero On ''Diary of the Dead'' |work=Cinema Blend |date=January 24, 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191226094750/https://www.cinemablend.com/new/Interview-George-A-Romero-On-Diary-Of-The-Dead-7818.html |archive-date=December 26, 2019}}</ref>

Much of the dialogue was altered, rewritten, or improvised by the cast.{{sfn|Kane|2010|pp=33–34, 40, 45}} Lead actress Judith O'Dea told an interviewer, "I don't know if there was an actual working script! We would go over what basically had to be done, then just did it the way we each felt it ''should'' be done".{{sfn|Collum|2004|p=4}} One example offered by O'Dea concerns a scene where Barbra tells Ben about Johnny's death. O'Dea said that the script vaguely had Barbra talk about riding in the car with Johnny before they were attacked. She described Barbra's dialogue for the scene as entirely [[improv theater|improv]].{{sfn|Collum|2004|pages=3–4}} Eastman modified the scenes written for Helen and Harry Cooper in the cellar.<ref name="Hardman/Eastmaninterview"/> Karl Hardman attributed Ben's lines to lead actor Duane Jones. Ben was an uneducated truck driver in the script until Jones began to rewrite his character.{{sfn|Kane|2010|pp=32–35}}<ref name="Hardman/Eastmaninterview"/>

The lead role was initially written for a [[white American|white]] actor, but upon casting black actor Duane Jones, Romero intentionally did not alter the script to reflect this.<ref name="Walkdead"/> The film appeared in theaters at a time when very few black actors played leading roles. The rare exceptions, like the consciously black heroes played by [[Sidney Poitier]], were written as subservient to make those characters palatable to white audiences.<ref>{{cite magazine |last=McGreevy |first=Nora |date=January 7, 2022 |title=How Sidney Poitier Rewrote the Script for Black Actors in Hollywood |url=https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/how-sidney-poitier-rewrote-the-script-for-black-actors-in-hollywood-180979333/ |magazine=[[Smithsonian Magazine]] |access-date=January 8, 2022 |archive-date=January 8, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220108205154/https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/how-sidney-poitier-rewrote-the-script-for-black-actors-in-hollywood-180979333/ |url-status=live}}</ref>{{sfn|Harper|2005}} Asked in 2013 if he took inspiration from the [[assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.]] in the same year that the movie was made, Romero responded in the negative, noting that he only heard about the shooting when he was on his way to find distribution for the finished film.<ref name="Walkdead"/>