Artist Matt Busch is about to unveil the fourth incarnation of Hollywood-is-Dead, a collection of hand-painted, re-imagined movie posters with a zombie twist. This time around, the series will focus on big-name blockbusters like Lord of the Rings (Lord of the Rank), Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (Lara Crypt: Tomb Riser) and The Sixth Sense (The Sick Sense). "Summer is when all the studios release their big guns," comments Busch, "so it's perfect timing to pay homage to the wondrous posters that leave us in awe."
Busch first made waves with his undead parodies in 2009 with Zombie Wars, a project authorized by Lucasfilm, repainting all 6 Star Wars movie posters with his decrepit vision. Media attention for the posters went as far as Late Night with Jimmy Fallon and G4TV. Since then, the outbreak expanded into an Online gallery, Hollywood-is-Dead.com, now with over 40 posters, including Harry Potter (Scary Rotter), Toy Story (Toy Gory) and Breakfast at Tiffany's (Breakfast is Tiffany).
For the latest series of zombified posters, Busch has returned to the roots that started it all; Star Wars. Busch explains, "When I illustrated the original set of Zombie Wars posters, I had no idea how big this was going to be, so I just picked my favorite poster images from the saga." For Star Wars- Episode 4: A New Hope, Busch chose a rare poster image that Drew Struzan illustrated for the 10th Anniversary. "A lot of collectors loved what I did, but purists have been begging for the standard one-sheet that everyone knows. Thus, the Zombie Wars: A New Epidemic alternate version has now been infected."