Darabont Takes THE WALKING DEAD To Tv

Totally agreed on this, Alex. I gave up around the sixth trade as well, and just haven't had any desire to get back into it. But with Darabont involved, I'll definitely be checking out the TV series when it finally hits DVD.

HOLY FUCK this is awesome.

I've only read the first five trades but I got the same impression you did, Alex, and have not as of yet felt compelled to continue further.

Bwaaaaa!?!

This could be great. Let's face it, zombies aren't going away. A Darabont produced series based on Kirkman's books -- holy shit. I'll watch.

I gave up after a while too, but this could be really awesome. I mean, you've got at least 3 seasons of good stuff.

Yeah, Tony Moore is my favorite artist working. Has anyone checked out his work on FEAR AGENT? Fucking amazing.

Back to WALKING DEAD, yeah, I'm with Gabe, three seasons of great material, right out of the gate. And I trust Darabont to do it justice... hell, do it better. The prison storyline alone would be the shit.

Fancasting?

It kind of loses steam after the Governor stuff but I'm still enjoying the book. I nearly flew through the roof of my house when I read this news though. Really exciting stuff.

I was expecting him to just be producing from the headline, but if he's actually directing*... nice!

*even if it's only an episode or 2.

I wonder if he's going to do it in black and white? I mean it would be a good way to work with the blood and what not while not really having to tone it down all that much.

I'll definitely be watching this. Although I too gave up after the fifth trade. It just felt that Kirkman run out of things to say and just kept the same general events happening only with a change of locale. The survivors find a safe looking place and decide to stay. There's some internal strife because mankind is its own worst enemy. The zombies show up. The survivors take some loses, pick up some new people and move on to the next place.

Good Lord this is great news. I would HIGHLY suggest everyone that quit the series after the first 5 trades read the rest. Volumes 8 and 9 are two of the most heartbreaking and shocking books I've ever read.

Awesome. The only way this news could be any better is if it were happening at HBO or Showtime. I've never seen a AMC show, do they adhere to the major network standards or are they allowed to do what they want?

I honestly thought THE WALKING DEAD was a derivative piece of shit. The first couple of trades were the best, but that's not saying much. There are so many great graphic novels deserving their own series but this isn't one of them.

Hopefully Darabont doesn't waste too much time on it.

Understatement.

Where did people stop (I read individual issues, not the trades) ? In the middle of the prison story? That did drag a lot but it ends greatly and it's picked up a lot since, IMO.

Personally, I stopped after the jail. The story started dragging for me and I decided to stop following until it came to a conclusion. That way I could see if it was worth picking up as a whole.

After they got to the jail or after the whole jail story? Middle of jail story = shit. End of jail story = awesome.

After the end and as they run into some chick with pet zombies. I don't remember details.

Interesting, I just started reading this and am liking it a lot so far.

It's too derivitive and boring for me. But so much of the story is in the telling, so I'm hopeful for a good adaptation.

"Darabont Takes THE WALKING..."

This being all I saw of the thread title at first, I excitedly thought this was news of Darabont's adaptation of The Long Walk finally moving forward. That's the walking dead I'd like to see him occupied with. But zombies, eh?

Like many here, I got bored with The Walking Dead after a certain point. The story is definitely in the telling, though. I'm actually having a hard time remembering the details of how those first few trades played out so I may need to revisit the series now that this news has hit.

I had the same thought. It was quickly followed by an idea that the full title was something like "Darabont Takes THE WALKING DUDE FOR A STROLL". Oh, well. Zombies are cool, too.

Someone could correct me but I think you're very confused. The chick with the pet zombies is WAY before they even get to the prison.
?

I will say that Kirkman has a special way of having characters state their feelings repeatedly in consecutive panels just in case we didn't get it that is completely annoying. I highly doubt any TV adaptation would be word for word anyways so I hope they do some serious dialog polishing.

Some of the fun will be spotting Jeffrey DeMunn and Bill Sadler in the cast.

I think she arrives while they're holed up in the prison.

I thought The Mist was the best zombie movie of the past few years (even despite the fact that there are no zombies in it), so this is nothing but good news to me. I'm about halfway through the 5th trade, and I can see that it's starting to lose steam, so hopefully he can keep a show fresh.

This is correct. She arrives while they are in prison. Middle of the story, not near the end of the prison story at all. I feel the opposite of everyone here it looks like. The first 5 trades were at times painful to get through. It's super derivative, morally illogical and the plot decisions are fucking retarded at times. However, when they get involved with 'The Governor' and get to the resolution that comes from dealing with him, the story is at it's best. Trades 6-8 are the best so far.

I was just thinking last week that I should catch back up on tWD. Looks like most of us are in the same boat. I haven't read too far past when they get settled down in the prison. Might have to find a comfy chair at a barnes & noble and catch up.

Needless to say, even if I was getting bored with it, Darabont makes everything all better.

People seem to have picked up on the fact that this series went into the dumper. I think Darabont can do justice to this arc better than Kirkman. Hopefully he jettisons all but the bare bones of the story.

No offense to Kirkman, but Darabont can write circles around him. He's the best possible show-runner for this.

On other boards I've noticed people fretting over the fact that this is on AMC and therefor will not be gory. AMC has BREAKING BAD which had one of the most fucked up gory episodes I have ever witnesses on a TV show, so no worries there.

The prison arc actually ends on a strong note. I think a filmic translation can only help in that it will cut off the fat.

I don't think it's a spoiler to say that the casting of Rick is damn important. How that character comes off in relation to the events in the story is key to whether or not this works. I know, I know...the casting of leads is always important...but in this case awesome zombie atmosphere won't be enough.

Awesome news, and count me into the people that gave up after the fifth trade...hell, thats why im hoping Darabont pulls another "The Mist" when it comes to deviating from the source material.

Since I read the singles I wasn't sure where the fifth or sixth trade lies but if it's really before The Governor even appears then I strongly recommend that people keep reading. The best stuff has yet to come. It gets downright crazy at the end (the real end) of the prison stuff.

We're talking about Michonne right? I stand corrected. I blame it on the fact that the prison arc goes on for-fucking-ever.

But I really do pity anyone who didn't see it out to its end.

And as has been said, one can easily excise the prison fat from it.

Is it weird that all I can think of is Tom Jane for the lead?

Haven't read the series, but I see the phrase "pet zombies" and it's enough to put me off. What makes a zombie story work is the horror inherent in the premise. This is why the original NOTLD was so effective, and also why Romero's flicks ran out of juice by the third film. Once the characters become comfortable with the idea of zombies and start treating them no differently than dangerous animals, trying to study them, train them, use them for labor, they might as well be wild dogs. *yawn*

Interesting news. And thanks for confirming things about the comic series. I started with the first three trades and then switched to individual issues until I burned out. Never made it to the end of the prison saga. It's a very good book, but around the time when the baby was about to be born and I realized I didn't really care... that I knew I was burned out on it. Maybe I should sell off my single issues and get back into a few more of the trades?

And yeah, Tom Jane does sound tempting casting.

I'm in.

They aren't 'pets'. They are tied to her, with their arms cut off. They are camouflage, allowing her to walk around in the middle of zombie crowds mostly unnoticed. The character who does this, is also little bit insane.


These are Romero zombies, not Fincher or Boyle zombies. They are dumb, slow and rotting.

If you did not make it through the 8th trade volume you are SERIOUSLY missing out.... I sat in silence for a day after reading it, it just goes there and doesn't stop.

Darabont will do wonders with this. Will he have a hand in writing it? Please say yes. I can't wait to see him polish off the dialogue, take the same story and just...you know...not have the horrible writing Kirkman sometimes has.

Spoilers?

Oh, and who says each trade will be one season? I figure the first season could either end with them getting to the prison, or with Rick's proclamation of "We ARE the walking dead!"

One part I really, really disliked, and this is nitpicky, is, after escaping Woodbury and The Governor, they finally make their way back home to the prison, to their families, to their loved ones, to safety....only to find the gates torn down and the whole place overrun with zombies. That was a fantastic cliffhanger, yes five pages into the next issue everything is fine and they go back to playing basketball. Kirkman defended this by saying "well, you already saw scenes of them cleaning out the zombies in the prison, so I figured I'd spare you the tedium."

That's like saying "Well, I already gave you a scene of Spider-Man fighting Doc Ock, so I figured I'd just skip that entirely."

If you can't make fighting zombies exciting in your zombie series, then I don't know what to tell you.

Oh, but I can't wait to see that moment in volume one where Rick goes back to shoot the paralyzed cyclist zombie. Anyone remember that? Tony Moore's art, the look on Rick's face after he shoots her...really sold the moment there.

Wow talk about an ignorant opinion.

Yeah I remember feeling cheated by that, too.


A cool moment that stands out to me is when they're in the first town and have stayed for the night when the snow melts off the sign, revealing "ALL DEAD" or something written on it.

I would have made it past the prison if hadn't I run out of my friend's trades. The fun is in the changing psychology and relationships (I personally loved the woman who deals with heartbreak by falling in love with everyone and gaining a death wish). Darabont is great for this (and he loves prisons) but also bad for this. It's key that he changes the original pacing, as attested to by this thread, and it's not certain that he won't make it more deliberate, honoring the original by drawing it out.

I dunno, I read the first TPB and wasn't inspired to read on. It was all the zombie cliches any fan of the genre has seen a million times. Maybe not dissected the same, but the writing wasn't interesting enough for me to try to find out. Everyone always talks about this series, and maybe one day I'll give the subsequent books a read, but beyond the violence, the book really did nothing for me.

With that said, I think the one person who could do this idea justice by rewriting it himself is Frank Darabont. Is there any other?

I don't see why anyone would say that Darabont is the only person who could do this justice. It's a fairly entertaining but generic series about zombies that I think a lot of directors could do a decent job with.

That said, I read all the trades up through them being at the prison for a while (which is basically all that were out at that point) and haven't really gotten back into it. I think my friend is still buying them so I should probably read some more eventually but it wasn't that high on my list.

Darabont's so good he could adapt THIS into a movie and still make it worth watching:

Darabont isn't the only person who could do it, but he is the best. And yes, that includes Romero.

Not pets.

Just my opinion, but here's why I feel that way:

(again, all my opinion)

He's the best at doing the human side of horror, he brings to life very real characters in the most unreal of situations, and as far as I'm concerned he's been doing that for like 20 years now.

Romero, I still love the guy, I'm one of the few unabashed Diary lovers, but if he were to do this film, I would be so disappointed.

It'd be like Martin Scorsese directing a Steven Seagal movie, just a real step down in substance all together.

I just felt like I'd seen everything I read in The Walking Dead before I read it. The characters were very generic, the story was very generic, the situations, etc. There were some cool scenes of violence, but that can be said about even some of the crappiest zombie films.

So then, what do I think Frank Darabont will do to change that? Rewrite the characters, reorganize the structure of the narrative, and make it about something more than what the comic was about, which was simply survival.

Like I said, maybe it delves deeper than I know beyond the first book, but that first book was just so copy and paste I wasn't motivated to know anything more about the characters or situation they were in. Could have been I just started it right after reading Cell too.

Either way, Darabont has done well in the past bringing depth, emotion, and viscera to open-ended, deliberate material so I think he can do it here. I think most other directors would say "Yeah, the story is cool, write a script we'll shoot it" where Darabont will say "Hmmm, let me go add some ideas and write this".

Once again, just my feelings, not saying they're any more correct or wrong than anyone else's.