- Wraparound cover of The Walking Dead #50.
In the 8,000-page-long letters sections at the back the zombie comic The Walking Dead, by Robert Kirkman and Charlie Adlard, a standard refrain is that the book should be adapted for an HBO series. Looks like Dead fans might be getting their wish—albeit on AMC rather than HBO. Says The Hollywood Reporter:
In its biggest development deal to date, AMC has acquired the rights to Robert Kirkman’s popular comic book The Walking Dead for a potential series.
Frank Darabont is on board to write, direct and exec produce the project, with Gale Anne Hurd of Valhalla Pictures and David Alpert of Circle of Confusion also executive producing….
Dead chronicles the months and years following a zombie apocalypse where a group of survivors, led by police officer Rick Grimes, travel in search of a safe, secure home. The comic explores the challenges of life in a world overrun by zombies that take a toll on the survivors. Over time, they grow willing to do anything to survive, so the interpersonal conflicts sometimes present a greater danger to their continuing survival than the zombies who roam the country.
I used to read The Walking Dead religiously—but a year or two, ago I started to get bored and dropped it, figuring I’d pick it up in trades to see if it had regained any of its initial punch. (I had the same reaction to Kirkman’s Invincible, actually, which I thought started out fucking amazing, but then started to lag.) Still, regardless of its lulls, Dead is a book filled with some great characters and some brilliant ideas (holing up in a prison to hide out from zombies? fantastic!), and if Darabont handles the material right—and the pulp horror of The Mist indicates he will—Dead‘s premise could be an incredibly solid one for a TV series. And since it’s going to AMC, that means only one thing: MAD MEN CROSSOVER.
If you’re interested, you can read the first issue of The Walking Dead for free right here.
This is really exciting news. I hope they don’t fuck it up.
Into it.
And also Erik, a Breaking Bad cross-over is way more likely than a Mad Men cross-over.
Or they could do all three in a mega-mash-up.
I am also excited about this.
If you want a good zombie rampaged mixed with some Cold War paranoia and consumerism, I’d recommend the movie Fido. It also has your daily recommended dose of Billy Connolly
[sic] rampage
Given how badly Darabont fucked up the ending of The Mist, let’s hope he doesn’t randomly decide to throw in some extra depressing shit just for the hell of it. The series is great, but it’s quite grim enough as it is.
Wha? The Mist’s ending is what sealed the deal for me on that movie. Kind of the perfect way to end a horror flick, I thought.
Yeah. The Mist wasn’t great, but it was good. Including the ending. What did you want to happen? Have Tom Jane fly to the mothership and kill it with a virus from his laptop?