“Hope to see you at Comic-Con,” says filmmaker Frank Darabont, writer-director of such big-screen projects as “The Shawshank Redeption,” “The Green Mile” and “The Mist.” “We've got a pretty cool ‘Walking Dead’ reel to show.”
We haven’t yet seen a second of footage from Darabont’s new AMC series “The Walking Dead,” but it could be this autumn’s most anticipated series.
Its first season, which comprises only six episodes, began shooting June 3 and will start shambling onto AMC in October.
It’s long been known that Darabont wrote and directed the first episode himself, but when AICN visited him on the set of the that episode last month, we knew next to nothing about who was handling these chores for subsequent episodes.
I asked Darabont himself and he just came back with the line-up for the entire first season:
Herc!
You have but to ask!
The directors for the first six are:
1) Me.
2) Michelle MacLaren (Breaking Bad, X-Files)
3) Gwyneth Horder-Payton (The Shield, BSG)
4) Johan Renck (Breaking Bad)
5) Ernest Dickerson (The Wire, Dexter)
6) Guy Ferland (The Shield, Sons of Anarchy)
The writers for the first six are:
1) Me
2) Me
3) Me, Chic Eglee, Jack LoGuidice. (Chic: The Shield, Dexter. Jack: Sons of Anarchy)
4) Robert Kirkman (wrote some comics I think)
5) Glen Mazzara (The Shield, Hawthorne)
6) Adam Fierro (The Shield, Dexter, 24)
(If Darabont is a typical showrunner, he’s overseeing all creative aspects of all episodes, from the writing to post-production, which he's said is “a full-time job in itself.”)
Eglee, whom I believe serves as the series’ co-showrunner, has been a grade-A force in American television for decades, having scripted lots of “Moonlighting,” “St. Elsewhere” and “L.A. Law” before creating “Murder One” for Stephen Bochco and “Dark Angel” for James Cameron.
Kirkman, for those unaware, writes the “Walking Dead” funnybooks on which the series is based. If I’m not mistaken, 1.4 will represent Kirkman’s first produced teleplay ever.
The “Walking Dead” Comic-Con panel is scheduled for Friday, July 23 at 11:30am in room 6BCF. Darabont, Kirkman and cast members Andrew Lincoln (Rick), Jon Bernthal (Shane), Sarah Wayne Callies (Lori), Laurie Holden (Andrea), and Emma Bell (Amy) are all expected.
