The Walking Dead Producer Speaks

SFX clusive: Don’t believe everything you’ve read about the show on the internet, reckons Gale Anne Hurd

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The Walking Dead , an adaptation of the infamous comic book, is probably the most hotly anticipated new TV show around. SFX has a news feature on it in issue 200 (out next Wednesday) and a feature due in issue 101, but here are a few extra words from producer Gale Anne Hurd that didn’t make it into the mag…

Has AMC, the network behind The Walking Dead , been hands off or hands on with this show?
Gale Ane Hurd: “From the very beginning they were completely on board. They’re known as a network that trusts the creators. I think that’s why their shows are so unique and they don’t feel generic. There’s nothing on AMC that feels generic. And it’s also why it was very important – not only to us but to AMC – that [writer of the original comic] Robert Kirkman be involved.”

Will the show depart from the comic book?
“We’re departing enough. We’ve been reading – I admit – blogs, and people think they know where the fist six episodes will end. But we’re shaking that up a bit.”
Why are zombies so big now?
“I think it’s in the zeitgeist. We’re facing natural disasters, whether it was Katrina, whether it was the tsunami, the earthquake in Haiti, the oil spill. I think there’s something in the zeitgeist about human survival after an apocalypse. In our case we have the fun of a zombie apocalypse, but it’s really stripping people away down to their basics and examining the human condition, where everything that we have here – the air conditioning, the cell phones, the microwaves, the technology – no longer exists.”

At some point could you outpace the Walking Dead comic?
“Well, Robert’s got 75 issues. Let’s say in a year or a year and a half the maximum we’d have was 19 [episodes], I don’t think we’re gonna get to that point. He told me he’s already got 250 in his mind, so if we do catch up, we haven’t outstripped what he’s already thought about”

Dave is a TV and film journalist who specializes in the science fiction and fantasy genres. He's written books about film posters and post-apocalypses, alongside writing for SFX Magazine for many years.