April 20, 1979
Dawn of the Dead at the Rivoli theater in New York City
National theatrical engagements are expanded to other markets, including 65 screens in New York, where Dawn grosses $1.3 million during its first two weeks. Reviews by East Coast critics such as Janet Maslin of the New York Times (who, much to George Romero’s chagrin, admits to have walked out of the theater 15 minutes into the film), Pauline Kael of The New Yorker, and Ernest Leogrande of The New York Daily News again are uniformly negative.
April 30, 1979
As opposed to his abovementioned colleagues, New York critic Tom Allen champions Dawn of the Dead in a highly favorable Village Voice cover story on the film and its director. One of Allen’s quotes (“I think it’s going to be the biggest cult blockbuster of all time…”) eventually ends up being used as a headline for subsequent print advertising campaigns.
The Village Voice
May 1979
Billy Baxter and Herbert Steinmann
Organized by Billy Baxter and Herbert Steinmann, an international critics’ screening of Dawn of the Dead (now in the form of George Romero’s final theatrical cut) is held at the Cannes Film Festival. Meanwhile back home, the film has by now grossed over $5.1 million domestically in only four weeks of release.
May 25, 1979
The American release of this year’s major Hollywood summer blockbuster, Ridley Scott’s Alien, pushes Dawn of the Dead out of most “flagship” theaters, but the film will still keep rotating nationwide over the following months.
June 1979
BBFC censor James Ferman (1930 – 2002)
Dario Argento’s edit of the film is submitted to the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) by U.K. distributors, Target International Pictures, to be reviewed by a group of “examiners” that includes the BBFC’s director at the time, James Ferman (as well as one unnamed gentleman who gets so offended by its content that he withdraws from the examination altogether following an initial screening and from then on will even refuse to merely discuss the film).
However, the number of cuts demanded for an “X” certificate turn out so exorbitant they are deemed inacceptable by Target.
Mid-June 1979
Dawn of the Dead is entered into drive-in circulation in upstate New York, where it ends up playing in double bills with films like What Ever Happened to Aunt Alice? and Meat Cleaver Massacre.
Black River Drive-in
June 18, 1979
Newsweek magazine runs a lengthy cover story on “Hollywood’s Scary Summer” that focuses on the slew of horror films released during that period which, in addition to Dawn, include Phantasm, The Amityville Horror, Alien, Nightwing, and The Prophecy.
June 26-28, 1979
Bernd Eichinger, George Romero and Christine Forrest celebrating the conclusion of the German ‘Zombie’ promo tour at an Italian restaurant in Munich, with its waiters posing in specially produced t-shirts.
German distributors Neue Constantin Film run a series of special advance previews of Zombie (as Dawn will be called in Germany) for theater owners/bookers at select cinemas in four major cities (Munich, Frankfurt, Hamburg, and Düsseldorf).
A half-page print advert announcing the shows in the local trade press states, “Following the screening, we will have a shot of clear spirit ready for you. You are going to need it!”
August 2, 1979
Zombie
Backed by an elaborate marketing campaign, Zombie opens in 60 West German theaters, in a slightly censored version based on Dario Argento’s cut. Despite almost uniformly negative press reviews, the film becomes a huge box office hit there, grossing a total of $5.2 million within less than four months, and also winning a “Golden Screen Award” the following year for drawing an audience of 3 million patrons.
Its massive success in Germany later even is addressed by Stephen King in a socio-political context in his 1981 non-fiction book about horror films and literature, Danse Macabre, and will also lead to the first domestic theatrical release of George Romero’s earlier film, The Crazies, in December 1979.