Fuck yes people. It's being made into a TV show for AMC FUCK YES.
For those of you who don't know The Walking Dead or TWD as it will be referred to henceforth, is a long running graphic novel series by the great Robert Kirkman. It's one of my favorite graphic novels ever so this is right up my ally.
Here's some pics of zombies and stuff.
They seem to be going realistic with the decomposition of the zombies.
Here is a progression of the states of decay the zombies will be in.Heres the IMDB page.
I can't wait to see how they handle the
Scene where the football star gets locked in the prison gym with a horde of zombies
Hopefully this will be what Zombieland should have been (Zombieland started off as a pilot for a TV show on CBS, hence the "Zombie kill of the week" theme in the movie)
Personally I think the zombie genre has gotten a little over-saturated but if any piece of work can overcome the stigmas of the genre its TWD. Also prepare for shitloads of melodrama. Which I wont mind as long as it comes with copious amounts of zed killings.
I also want to add that everyone needs to LABEL ANY AND ALL SPOILERS FROM THE GRAPHIC NOVEL. I'M ONLY ON BOOK 3 GODDAMNIT!
Posts
So excited!
I'm gonna go reread the books I've got right now!
Face Twit Rav Gram
So I'm looking forward to this overcrowded genre finally getting something worth seeing.
edit: And hurry up and read more of it. I like where it's going at the moment.
What we haven't gotten is a film that defines the genre this decade the way Night of The Living Dead and Dawn of The Dead did for the 60's and 70's.
oh i'm so down for that.
Time to read the books finally i guess.
That teaser video sucks though. Not due to the lack of footage, but to the blatant pandering on display. Darabont and Hurd are obviously being coached to namedrop Mad Men as often as possible, and it's completely unneccessary. "We wanna do for zombies what Mad Men did for advertising." That doesn't even fucking MEAN anything. It's empty bullshit aimed at pacifying an audience that doesn't need a binky shoved in its mouth.
I mean, it's AMC. Sure, it's got Breaking Bad and Mad Men, but when those two shows aren't on, they rerun Poltergeist III and Wishmaster all day long. The audience doesn't need to be told "It's Mad Men, but with undead ghouls shambling around" in order to tune in, and Hurd and Darabont would do better to sell their show by being allowed to sell their show, not make bullshit analogies to a completely separate series that has NOTHING to do with them and what they're trying to do.
Geek: Remixed - A Decade's worth of ruined pop culture memories
Xbox Live - Fatboy PDX
that is kind of a mind bending quote there.
Anyway, zombies. I've never seen anything from AMC (although people keep raving about Mad Men), but you can't go too far off script with zombies, so I'm going with Cautiously Excited.
Hear that SyFy? Try as you might, you haven't broken my spirit.
Edit: Also, those decay sketches are really promising. Great to see that they're pulling at all the stops as far as make-up is concerned. I think a lot of people in the industry are forgetting that non-CG technology has also made a fuckton of advances over the past 20 years.
Listen.
AMC makes maybe one original series a year.
And so far they have all been emmy award winning. Seriously some of the best television I have ever seen. With all of that in mind there is no other network I would want to be producing this television show.
I don't think my level of excitement is going even consider dropping until October hits. My favorite comic heading to one of my favorite networks?
Glorious.
Yes, AMC and SyFy, totally on the same budget scale
I am wondering how AMC will deal with the gore quotient, but maybe that will give them an excuse to avoid the more torture-porn plot developments of the comic.
Seriously, there's just some stuff in the comic that they'll never get away with on television. Such as one particular scene that combines both
I don't mind that they're not going to 100% follow the comic - let the comic be the comic and the television show be the show. I'm more excited that we'll have an ongoing (hopefully) tv series about "what happens once the zombie movie is over" (something Kirkman has been saying since the earliest TWD letter columns).
I think they could go that route if they really want to - just imply it instead of 100% showing it. I mean, there are certain plot points I'm not really eager to see faithfully adapted on the screen, like
Eh breaking bad has had a decapitated head placed on top of a tortoise.
that is on top of a bomb
and explodes killing and maiming people.
they've also had bodies dissolved into liquid mush pour over from a bath tub.
uh
brains blown out the back of skulls and INTO the camera.
so uh. yeah we're good there.
Wait!
AMC is a cable network they can more or less do what they want after 10pm! They just need advertisers willing to associate with them, and a zombie show its pretty much a guarantee at a specific type of audience.
I forgot about that.
Fair enough. I've only watched a few episodes of Breaking Bad.
I believe Kirkman or the director said that they will be allowed to have those levels of gore and violence EVERY minute of the show if they wanted.
I really really think this is going to be done properly.
Somebody hasn't watched 28 Days Later yet, have they? This one movie put more of a mark on the genre than any since the Romero days. It introduced the highly controversial "fast zombies" into films, which has been a staple since.
Honestly, this is easily the best piece of zombie literature ever penned. I can't express enough love for The Walking Dead.
Aside from the nerd-nitpickery that will attempt to disqualify "28 Days Later" from the discussion (Yes, they're technically not Zombies, but for all intents and purposes...) I'm not so sure that's the best pick - Shaun of the Dead is probably a better reflection of the 2000's than Boyle's movie.
Geek: Remixed - A Decade's worth of ruined pop culture memories
Xbox Live - Fatboy PDX
Eh I disagree. 28 Days Later was the movie that relaunched this decade's love of zombies. Sure Shaun of the Dead was amazing, but I don't know if it would have even been made if not for 28 Days Later.
Geek: Remixed - A Decade's worth of ruined pop culture memories
Xbox Live - Fatboy PDX
Shaun of the Dead may in fact be a better reflection of the 2000s as a whole, but going back to the original statement in that quote tree I'd have to say that 28 Days Later does actually define the genre for that decade in a manner similar to Night or Dawn.
You seem to be arguing something slightly different from those discussing genre-defining films.
Geek: Remixed - A Decade's worth of ruined pop culture memories
Xbox Live - Fatboy PDX
My Backloggery
That's all well and good, but we're still missing two decades worth of epic, genre-defining zombie movies. Unless we're throwing Day of the Dead out there for the 80s...I'd have expected something with a bit more camp.
And I don't believe the hypothetical zombie-genre can ever become oversaturated. They're essentially disaster/apocalypse media with a legitmate reason for guns and explosions. But apparently I'm also well out of the loop since I've never heard of this "Walking Dead" either...but I am intrigued.
[edit]Apparently Army of Darkness and Dead Alive were from 1992, so I guess that covers the 90s[/edit]
As a Brit I grew up watching him on This Life and I can't make the leap, nor can I imagine him being able to do the accent.
Edit: as for genre defining film, how's WWZ coming along? not heard much from that in a while...
I read through all 11 trades in about a week about 2 months ago on the recommendation of a friend, then I heard about the TV show. After reading it all there's some shit I know they're going to have to change or I'll be shocked.
That is kinda weird casting. We'll see, though.
WWZ is delayed at the moment, I think. Last I heard they were re-writing Straczynski's script and Marc Forster is off the project because of the delays so they're looking for a new director too.
PSN/XBL: Zampanov -- Steam: Zampanov
Really? that sucks, I liked what I had seen of the script so far (the highway traffic jam / sea of Zach stuff) but then I heard he had them as "runners" too.