"Like Polley, the rest of the cast members joined the film for reasons other than fealty to Romero's classic. Rhames looked at the story as a metaphor for tumultuous times rather than a literal interpretation of the source material, which itself is ripe with social commentary. "I didn't see the original, and in general I'm not a fan of the horror genre," admitted Rhames. "But from reading the script, I don't really put this film in that category. To me, it just so happens that our nemeses are zombies, but it could be any life-threatening situation." Rhames observed that the cast of characters reflected a decidedly more multi-cultural slant than in other recent films. "What I liked about it was, I thought it's bringing people from different ethnicities, different cultures together who need each other. So when I look at the world, I really say unfortunately, sometimes it's an atrocity; let's say 9/11; that forces us to come together. When I read the script I had no concept of what the zombies would look like; I just said, it's interesting to find these groups of characters in the situation." As he also acknowledged, it didn't hurt to have a steady hand behind the camera to keep the proceedings organized: "I also looked at Zack's reel, he has a very good commercial reel, and what I did was I turned down the volume, and I just watched how he moved the camera, and how the camera told the story. After that, I said, you know, I think this guy has a lot of potential, and I'd like to be a part of the project.""