May 1978
George with Billy “Silver Dollar” Baxter (1926 – 2012)
An early, 139-minute cut of Dawn of the Dead is shown at the Film Festival in Cannes, France, marking the film’s debut public screening. During his stay in Cannes, Richard Rubinstein happens to meet veteran PR man, film distributor and producer Billy “Silver Dollar” Baxter by total coincidence while playing Black Jack in a hotel casino.
Rubinstein is holding aces and wants to double down, but finds himself out of cash. Baxter, sitting next to him at the same table, asks to see his cards, and spontaneously loans him the money to make his move and beat the house. After payback, the two strike up a conversation in the lobby, during which Rubinstein mentions that he is looking for investors helping to finish his current movie project. Without even knowing what the picture in question is about, Baxter requests the producer to arrange a screening for himself and his business partner, Herbert R. Steinmann, back home in New York.
Although both are disliking the film, Baxter and Steinmann (who even calls it “a piece of crap”) are able to see its commercial potential and eventually end up investing $104,000 each to pay for post-production costs, earning them credits as Dawn’s “presenters” and, more importantly, a 16-percent share in box office revenues.
1978
After Laurel have formally submitted the film to the Motion Picture Association of America, Richard Rubinstein gets a phone call from the board’s chairman at the time, Richard Heffner, who informs him that “there isn’t a list long enough” for all the cuts necessary to avoid an “X” rating.
Hence, Romero and Rubinstein agree on attempting to get Dawn released completely unrated, all the while keeping a debate about the MPAA’s unjustness of slapping the “X” label onto violent horror films without sexual content going in the entertainment press.
(Suffice to say that its board members remain decidedly unimpressed by any of this, and it won’t be until more than a decade later that the “X” is finally replaced by a newly-established “NC-17” rating.)
July 1978
Martin at the Waverly
In the midst of all the activity surrounding George Romero’s next feature, his previous work, Martin, is released in North America to little fanfare, more than one and-a-half years after principal photography has wrapped up.
Although its rather sporadic distribution will ultimately prevent the film from becoming widely seen, it is met with mostly positive reviews, and – just like Night of the Living Dead six years before – also gets exhibited in special weekend midnight showings at New York’s Waverly Theater (which has become famous for hosting the very first “audience participation” screenings of The Rocky Horror Picture Show) that amazingly are still going on by the time Dawn of the Dead sees its domestic release in April of the following year.
Summer 1978
“MANGIA!”
Cinemas in Italy are starting to show an undubbed and very graphic theatrical trailer (based on the Dario Argento edit) that not only gives away many of the film’s key gore scenes in advance, but also is notable for containing some lines of off-camera dialogue by a radio announcer that are not included in any version of the actual film as well.
September 1978
Rare early “teaser” poster art for the film’s Italian release
First worldwide theatrical release of Dawn of the Dead (as Zombi, in Dario Argento’s version) in Italy, distributed by Titanus Films of Rome. The film goes on to top the domestic box office charts a week after opening there, even leaving behind Saturday Night Fever.
With a total revenue of $3 million, Zombi will eventually end up ranking at #24 in the list of the top-grossing films released in Italy during 1978/79; well ahead of popular contemporaries such as Midnight Express, National Lampoon’s Animal House, or Every Which Way But Loose.
Fall 1978
With the first profits now rolling in from overseas, proving that they have a real smash at their hands, Romero and Rubinstein are starting to look out for an American distributor willing to take the major risk of releasing Dawn of the Dead without an official MPAA rating.
Both American International Pictures and Warner Bros. are interested in buying the domestic rights, but demand the film to be cut for an “R” rating, which Romero keeps refusing to do.
Mid-October 1978
George Romero and Richard Rubinstein take Dawn of the Dead to the international movie market fair MIFED (Mercato Internazionale del Film e del Documentario) in Milan, Italy. There, they get to meet Richard Hassanein, co-president of the New York-based “United Film Distribution Company (UFDC)”, who shows serious interest in acquiring the American rights to the film.
A screening for Hassanein’s partners, including his father Salah, at the UFDC headquarter in New York is arranged. The executives’ decision to pick up the film and get it into theaters “as is” then is made rather quickly; with Romero and Rubinstein agreeing on the sale despite Hassanein making the lowest offer out of the three parties that were originally interested in purchasing the film ($500,000, whereas AIP and Warner Bros. had been ready to pay $750,000 and a million, respectively, albeit of course only for an “R”-rated cut).
Late October 1978
Dawn of the Dead screens at the annual film festival “Internationale Hofer Filmtage” in Hof, West Germany, with the director present.
November 1978
Dario Argento’s cut of Dawn of the Dead is submitted for the first time to the Australian Classification Board (CB) by New South Wales distributors “Incamera Pty Ltd”, and immediately refused an official rating. Following this initial rejection, the film’s domestic distribution will pretty much lay in limbo for almost a year.
December 1978
Dawn of the Dead tie-in movie novelization
Based on George Romero’s screenplay, the Dawn of the Dead tie-in movie novelization written by Susanna Sparrow is published in hardcover by St. Martin’s Press in the U.S.
Over the next year, the book also will be issued in Japan, Germany, and the U.K. to coincide with the film’s respective theatrical releases in those countries.