Co-written as a horror comedy by John Russo and George A. Romero under the title "Monster Flick", an early screenplay draft concerned the exploits of adolescent aliens who visit Earth and befriend human teenagers. A second version of the script featured a young man who runs away from home and discovers rotting human corpses that aliens use for food scattered across a meadow. Russo came up with the concept that they would be the recently dead only, because they could not afford to bring long-dead people out of their graves. He also came up with the idea that they would be "flesh-eaters". The final draft, written mainly by Russo during three days in 1967, focused on reanimated human corpses – Romero refers to them as "ghouls" – that consume the flesh of the living. In a 1997 interview with the BBC's "Forbidden Weekend", Romero explained that the script developed into a three-part short story. Part one became "Night of the Living Dead". Sequels "Dawn of the Dead" (1978) and "Day of the Dead" (1985) were adapted from the two remaining parts.