AMC’s eagerly anticipated television adaptation of Robert Kirkman’s comic series, The Walking Dead, will premiere this weekend on Halloween night, but how close is it to the source material? For starters, Kirkman was heavily involved with the casting and writing on the show. He has, in fact, written the fourth episode of the six-episode first season.
Frank Darabont, executive producer, director, and writer for the show, talks about how the television adaptation translates Kirkman’s comic series to the small screen:
“I like that the series is really being true to the comic book in the sense of its intimacy, its focus on these characters. I like that every story doesn’t have to turn into a big action scene. The sort of quiet, focused, intense storytelling that we’re doing often is very reflective of what Robert has done in the comic books and I like that.”
Kirkman is supportive of the additions that were added to the show:
“Between [director] Frank [Darabont] and the writers in the writing room, there are a lot of great, talented people working on this show and a lot of interesting ideas come up when you’re addressing what to do with this. There’s a lot of new characters added that I think are amazing and that people are going to fall in love with.”
Star Andrew Lincoln holds Darabont in the utmost esteem, being a fan of Darabont’s The Mist and Shawshank Redemption. Here Lincoln talks (yes, he’s not actually from the south, but don’t hold that against him) about how Darabont directs:
Check out more behind the scenes featurettes here.
The Walking Dead stars Andrew Lincoln (Heartbreaker, Love Actually) as Rick Grimes, “a police officer who’s shot in the line of duty and wakes up in the hospital to find the world has fallen victim to a zombie plague. He goes in search of his wife and child.”
Jon Bernthal (Walks, Eastwick) plays the role of Shane Walsh, Rick’s partner in the sheriff’s department, and Sarah Wayne Callies (Faces in the Crowd, Prison Break) is Lori, Rick’s wife. Laurie Holden (The Shield, The Mist), Jeffrey DeMunn (The Reasonable Bunch, The Mist), and Steven Yeun (Big Bang Theory) also star.
The six-episode series will begin with a premiere that is ninety-minutes long, a half hour longer than subsequent episodes.
Watch The Walking Dead premiere with a ninety-minute episode on AMC, Halloween night, Sunday, October 31, 2010 at 10/9C and in the UK on November 5, 2010 on FX.
[Source] DigitalSpy
