Following Hooper's departure from the project, Russo, along with his new partner, Dan O'Bannon, wrote a new script (with Russo adapting it into an accompanying novel), also titled "The Return of the Living Dead". This project alleviated confusion by including a scene in which a character acknowledges the George Romero films and explains that while they are based on true events, the events of the "Return" series are the "true story". In addition to this separation of the storylines, the films in the "Return" series are markedly more comedic than Romero's films, with slapstick humor.