AMC Orders Pilot for “The Walking Dead”

Okay, so we’ve all heard the news considering AMC’s decision to produce a live-action TV series based off “The Walking Dead” by Robert Kirkman. Well, that news gained a little more strength with the official announcement that “The Walking Dead” pilot will be filmed in the second quarter of 2010.

The series (if picked up) will be executive produced by Kirkman himself, alongside Frank Darabont (The Shawshank Redemption, The Mist), who will write and direct the pilot episode. AMC has also ordered another pilot called The Killing to be produced in the spirit of AMC’s original programming drive. Now anybody who has seen some of their other original programming (Mad Men, Breaking Bad) should be rejoicing at the decision to bring The Walking Dead into the fold.

Now, as we have all discussed on the boards for a while, “The Walking Dead” at it’s heart is not a zombie book, it’s a character piece. Yes, it features in a world primarily overrun by the undead, but the stories are driven by the emotions and hard ships the main characters are forced to go through. I believe AMC has the right background to get the character piece right, just watch Breaking Bad. The only thing I am worried about is what AMC may allow in the series.

While “The Walking Dead” could be considered a gory comic, it’s very subtle and muted, as opposed to your mainstream zombie comic. It’s more the situations that they find themselves in that are directed to a more…mature audience, I suppose. And AMC edits all their movies for content before 10pm… just makes me wonder if I will be able to experience this amazing apocalyptic world as it was meant to be seen, or a censored dare I say it family friendly view of “The Walking Dead”. Either way, I will probably watch it, because there isn’t really much else on TV these days anyway. ‘Nuff Said.

Variety reported today that Robert Kirkman and Charlie Adlard’s ongoing tale of survival horror in a post-apocalyptic world, THE WALKING DEAD, has been greenlit as a pilot by AMC.

THE WALKING DEAD’s road to the small screen has been a long one, but so far it’s looking like the best of all worlds," creator and writer Robert Kirkman said:"Given AMC’s track record with shows like ‘Madmen’ and ‘Breaking Bad,’ combined with Frank Darabont writing and directing, I couldn’t possibly be more excited for this to come together. Having the pilot greenlit is a huge leap forward to this becoming a reality."

THE WALKING DEAD has been published by Image Comics since 2003, with the series’ 69th issue due in stores next week. Current plans are for the AMC series to closely adapt the storylines presented in the monthly comics. In addition to the ongoing comics series, there are 11 trade paperbacks currently in print, collecting issues 1-66, along with a series of five hardcovers covering #1-60. The first 48 issues have also been collected in two limited edition slipcased hardcovers and a softcover compendium. Across are formats the series remains a sales juggernaut with the title charting on the New York Times’ graphic novels bestsellers list numerous times.

"Since its debut in October 2003, THE WALKING DEAD has been nothing short of unstoppable," said Image Comics Publisher Eric Stephenson. "Over the last five years, sales on both the single issues and the trade paperback and hardcover collections have gone from strength to strength, so it’s no surprise that THE WALKING DEAD is now poised for success on TV. Everyone at Image is very excited to see this project come to light."

And the man, Robert Kirkman told MTV the following:

MTV: So, everyone seems to be in agreement about how great of a pairing it is for Darabont to be directing "The Walking Dead"…

ROBERT KIRKMAN: When I heard that Darabont was interested in doing it a long, long time ago, I was just ecstatic. For me, "The Walking Dead" is not necessarily a horror thing. It’s not all about the shocks. It’s about characters and all of that dramatic nonsense. And Darabont does that better than anybody. If you’ve seen "The Shawshank Redemption" or "The Mist," you know he gets to the heart of the characters and shows them dealing with extremes. It’s a match made in heaven.

MTV: There were rumors that Guillermo Del Toro was initially interested in the project. Was that the case? Did you know about him being interested, too?

KIRKMAN: I did, yes.

MTV: How much will you be involved in shaping the series on AMC?

KIRKMAN: I’m going to be an executive producer on the show, so I’ll have my hands all over the thing. But it’s important to me that I’m only involved in the show as much my comic book career will allow. I’m excited that there is a television show, and I’m excited that Darabont is involved—and one of the big reasons for that is that I trust him. I don’t need to look over his shoulder. Frank understands the material 100 percent. It’s always been shocking to me, doing Hollywood meetings over the years, just how easy it is for someone to come in to the meeting and say something like, "We want the zombies to have super powers." Knowing that, I’m really excited about it, because from my discussions with Frank, he likes the right things about "Walking Dead."

MTV: How will the TV series relate to the comic? Will it follow the same basic story arc, or will it explore a new area of the "Walking Dead" universe?

KIRKMAN: I’ve told Frank flat-out that I do not want him to follow the comic to the detriment of the show. I encourage him to veer off if he has something that will work really well on TV that wouldn’t work in a comic. I don’t want people who enjoy the comic to be watching the TV show and going, "Oh, this is leading to that one thing I already know about from the comic." I think it will be 100-percent true to the tone of the series, but at the same time it will be an entertaining, secondary way of experiencing "The Walking Dead" in a completely different light, so I’m excited.

MTV: There’s been some concern that the series might lose its edge being broadcast on AMC instead of one of the less-restricted networks like HBO or Showtime. Is that something you’re worried about? Is that even a concern?

KIRKMAN: I had no concerns about that whatsoever, because one of the concerns I have about zombie fiction is when they rely too much on the shocking gore aspects. That’s not really the point of "Walking Dead," so to a certain extant, I think it will work better at AMC—because it forces people not to rely on that stuff. As far as "Walking Dead" not having teeth on AMC, if you’ve ever seen [certain episodes of] "Mad Men" or "Breaking Bad," they push a lot of boundaries as far as content goes.In fact, I just had a meeting with a bunch of the executives at AMC, and Darabont, and Gale Anne Hurd and David Alpert at Circle of Confusion, and the executives were talking to Darabont about his script and they said, "You can’t use the F-word." That was the only limitation they gave him. We were all stunned. The thing is, you don’t necessarily have to see everything that’s going on, and sometimes things are even more horrific when you don’t see the goriest parts.

Also my girl Gale Anne Hurd, who was part of the original TERMINATOR team is on board to produce. The day following the above announcement we heard this from i09:

Frank Darabont, director of The Shawshank Redemption has been given the go-ahead from AMC to adapt the astounding zombie comic The Walking Dead for television. Time to get excited, and prepare your anti-zombie shelter.

The Walking Dead is based on the comic series written by Robert Kirkman. It was previously announced that AMC was in talks to bring the undead back to life. It’s now being reported in the trades that AMC has stopped talking, and is ready to bring Darabont’s pilot adaptation to undead life. Plus he’s going to sign on to direct.MC’s Charlie Collier released this statement: "Working with people like Frank Darabont and Gale Anne Hurd is the right way in for us to deliver a project of distinction in this genre."

Which we translate as, "We’re taking this seriously. This is not another The Prisoner."

So, as far as SupaScoot and and I are concerned, this is all good news.