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Walking Dead Fires Writing Staff

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The Walking Dead has let go of its entire writing staff, per what sounds like Frank Darabont’s personal instructions. Darabont, who’s best known as the writer/director of movies like The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile, is the primary creative force behind bringing The Walking Dead to the small screen, where he serves as producer, head writer, and occasional director.

According to Deadline, Darabont’s plan for Season Two of the show is to not use an on-staff group of writers, but instead to hand out assignments to freelance writers. The Walking Dead would not be the first show to use this method; many British shows are known to do the same, including the upcoming BBC/Starz coproduction of Torchwood.

If this is Darabont’s plan for the show’s second season, it could be problematic for the Writers Guild of America, which is known to be fiercely protective of its members’ treatment and wages. Is this the first hint of a paradigm shift for how TV screenwriting works? Only time will tell.

In related news, The Hollywood Reporter says that the first season of The Walking Dead will arrive on DVD and Blu-ray sometime next Spring. The first season finale premieres this Sunday, December 5th.

First look at AMC’s Walking Dead

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Cable television just keeps proving itself as the place to find edgy, original programming. Take a look at The Walking Dead, a six-episode series from AMC, which started filming today and premieres in October.

The series is based on a comic book of the same name by writer Robert Kirkman, about a group of survivors looking for a safe place to call home after a zombie apocalypse. Despite the outrageous plot, the show has the potential to be at the gritty quality level of True Blood or Mad Men, thanks to the major league pedigree it boasts from writer and director Frank Darabont. Darabont is a multiple Oscar-nominated talent, best known for his big-screen adaptations of Stephen King’s The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile. Darabont has written and is directing all six episodes of the show, which AMC is billing as a “first season,” obviously in the hopes of extending the show should it catch on. Sci-fi mega-producer Gale Anne Hurd (Terminator, Armageddon, Aliens, Alien Nation, etc.) is onboard as executive producer.

The Walking Dead stars Afterlife‘s Andrew Lincoln as small-town policeman Rick Grimes, who becomes leader to the group of survivors, along with his wife Lori, played by Prison Break‘s Sarah Wayne Callies. While searching for a safe haven and evading the zombies at every turn, the survivors will also have to contend with their own interpersonal conflicts, as well as the lengths each of them is prepared to go to, to stay alive.

The photo above represents the first official look at the “Walkers,” the show’s zombies. Below is a sneak peek video featuring interviews with Darabont and Hurd.

Photo Credit: David Tattersall