‘The Walking Dead’: Why Frank Darabont Was Fired & The Chaotic Aftermath

‘The Walking Dead’: Why Frank Darabont Was Fired & The Chaotic Aftermath: "



The news of Frank Darabont stepping down from AMC’s hit series 

The Walking Dead took everyone by shock. This feeling grew even more when it was revealed that Darabont didn’t step down, but was actually fired.
With fans seeking to find out why the man that championed last year’s television phenomenon was unceremoniously fired days after appearing at Comic-Con 2011, The Hollywood Reporter is presenting the fact as they know it – including the chaotic mess that The Walking Dead season 2 currently finds itself in.

Shortly after their appearance at Comic-Con, Darabont returned to Los Angeles to work on editing an episode of the upcoming second season of The Walking Dead. With the cast in Atlanta to continue filming, Ben Davis, AMC vice-president of scripted programming, gathered the cast together for a lunch meeting. In this meeting, he broke the news that Darabont had been fired. With a simple explanation of “This isn’t working,” sources close to the series said that “It’s a crushing blow” and that “Even when you have a hit, they can still destroy you.”
Even though The Walking Dead proved to be a hit – and it being the only series that AMC owns completely – the network had already announced to the producers that they would not only be cutting the budget of the series from $3.4 million to $2.7 million, but that they would also want 13 episodes produced instead of 6 episodes that made up its first season. To make matters worse, AMC also told the producers that the 30% tax credit that the series receives from filming in Georgia would go directly to the network, and not make up for some of the money that was taken out of the production budget.

The Walking Dead @ Comic-Con

AMC’s decision of fiscal irresponsibility and the unappreciation for those who make The Walking Dead is largely what led to Darabont being fired. Originally taking the announcement of a second season budget cut in stride, the producers of the series decided to wait until the first season premiered. After The Walking Dead began breaking ratings records for the network, the producers assumed their budget wouldn’t be cut as much as originally thought.
Unfortunately, this is exactly what happened – and Darabont wasn’t too happy about it. Known as a man who fights for what he believes in, a confrontation between AMC and The Walking Dead producers occurred. With the head of original programming for AMC, Joel Stillerman, sticking to the cut budget, the network than began to overstep their bounds and attempt to tell Darabont how to create the series.
Instead of long sprawling outdoor scenes, the network wanted the second season of The Walking Dead to occur 50% outdoors and 50% indoors (indoors being cheaper to film). Another note asked the question about whether or not the audience had to always see the zombies – couldn’t they simply hear them sometimes.

Head of Original Production for AMC Jack Stillerman (on the right)

It’s been said that Darabont was involved in constant battles with the network to maintain the creative vision that drew so many fans to the series in the first place. On top of that, sources say that Darabont “doesn’t like to see the cast and crew overworked and underpaid.” Even with record ratings on their side, Darabont would continuously enter meetings with Stillerman where he would simply say, “Ratings have no bearing on this conversation.” Stillerman is somewhat known for not being the “best person” to deal with. With rumors persisting that he has poor relationships with most of AMC’s0 series creators, insiders have begun to say that “Joel [Stillerman] thinks he is responsible for the success of shows on AMC, and not the creators.”
With AMC making a leap into the forefront of scripted television, there’s always been a sense of the network going through growing pains. Not only is AMC doing it on their own (they have no parent company for support), but they’re also trying to maintain a quality which rivals that of their pay-cable counterparts, HBO and Showtime.
Unfortunately, AMC only makes 60 cents for each cable subscriber, which isn’t enough to maintain that level of quality that they were once able to do when they weren’t expected to pay the same amount as the other networks for programming. That being said, it’s hard to really stand up for a network that’s being championed by someone who’s completely contrary to the creative process.

The cast of The Walking Dead

Even if AMC was trying to do what’s best for the network (without having to operate at a loss – something that HBO does, but is evened out by HBO being owned by Time Warner), there comes a point when taking a loss for the quality of the product is more important that staying in the green.
As the saying goes, “Good things come to those who wait.”
AMC has been waiting a long time to make it this far. Jumping from simply replaying old movies to creating original content – this all comes with a price. While not everything will make the financial return that you’re hoping for, it rarely does when you’re first starting out. And for AMC, they’re most certainly starting out.
Hopefully AMC will make it through these growing pains intact. If not, you can sure bet that there are many other cable networks willing to take over in the place (and have the money to do it).
Now that Glen Mazzara is taking over for Frank Darabont, we’ll have to wait and see what happens when The Walking Dead season 2 premieres.
Fingers crossed.



Every Friday, get 2 for 1 movie tickets when you use your Visa Signature card.

READ MORE - ‘The Walking Dead’: Why Frank Darabont Was Fired & The Chaotic Aftermath

THE WALKING DEAD cast crew were surprised by the firing of Frank Darabont

THE WALKING DEAD cast crew were surprised by the firing of Frank Darabont: "
Fans of the hit AMC television adaptation of Robert Kirkman’s The Walking Dead were surprised to hear showrunner Frank Darabont would be exiting the series. Apparently, so were the cast and crew.

The Hollywood Reporter gathered this information from an insider on the show, writing:

“In hot, sticky Atlanta, where production on the second season had been under way since June, the cast was summoned to a lunch meeting with AMC vp scripted programming Ben Davis, who confirmed that Darabont was out. The crew was briefed separately. One insider says those gathered were stunned at “the duplicity of AMC” for having used Darabont to promote the show at Comic-Con before firing him. And they were angry about the lack of explanation; they were simply told, cryptically, “This isn’t working.” Above all, they were disheartened. “It’s a crushing blow,” says the insider. “Even when you have a hit, they can still destroy you.”

Yikes. “Insiders” always seem to dramatize any situation under the condition of anonymity but it seems at least that the firing of Darabont was an unpopular decision all around. THR reports that Darabont returned to Los Angeles after the news to finish some notes and send out cordial goodbye emails but that he and his representatives are maintaining a “steady silence” on the topic.

“There also have been no public comments from the cast,” writes THR, “and a source with knowledge of the situation says AMC has been ‘terrorizing’ them and their representatives to discourage them from speaking out on Darabont’s behalf. ‘They’re scared,’ confirms another insider. ‘They’re on a zombie show. They are all really easy to kill off.’”

Again, very dramatic but whatever the case, not even AMC is opening up about the decision. “AMC issued a statement after Darabont was dismissed, expressing gratitude for his ‘innumerable’ contributions to the show,” writes THR. “Asked to comment on criticism for the handling of his departure, a spokesperson said, ‘We have nothing further to add.’”

However, it has previously been reported that Glen Mazzara, Darabont’s former second-in-command, will be taking over as showrunner of The Walking Dead. Season 2 is currently in production.
"

Every Friday, get 2 for 1 movie tickets when you use your Visa Signature card.

READ MORE - THE WALKING DEAD cast crew were surprised by the firing of Frank Darabont

Darabont on ‘The Walking Dead’: Stephen King a Possibility; Michonne in Season 3

Darabont on ‘The Walking Dead’: Stephen King a Possibility; Michonne in Season 3: "

After receiving the George Pal Memorial Award (for genre work during the last quarter century) at the Saturn Awards this past week, in addition to a “Best TV Presentation” win for his AMC hit The Walking Dead, executive producer Frank Darabont had a brief moment to divulge some insider gossip regarding the status of season 2 and (hopefully) beyond.

According to FEARnet, Darabont addressed two big Walking Dead rumors: 1) the zombie wrangling, sword wielding, fan-favorite Michonne will eventually be joining the ranks of The Walking Dead, and 2) he’s still hoping to get Stephen King, and his son Joe Hill, to write an episode at some point.

Unfortunately, Darabont pretty much ruled ...

Click to continue reading Darabont on ‘The Walking Dead’: Stephen King a Possibility; Michonne in Season 3



Subscribe to Ed Johnson Presents: TALES OF JUSTICE (DC Minimate Webcomics & DC News) by Email

READ MORE - Darabont on ‘The Walking Dead’: Stephen King a Possibility; Michonne in Season 3

Frank Darabont talks about firing THE WALKING DEAD writers

Frank Darabont talks about firing THE WALKING DEAD writers: "
Frank Darabont shocked fans of AMC’s The Walking Dead last November when he fired the entire writing staff of the successful show. Turns out, Darabont wrote most of the episodes himself anyway but it still raised some eyebrows. The director is finally speaking out about the decision.

Speaking with Deadline, Darabont said the whole thing was “pretty overblown.” “It left the impression that I walked in one day and murdered 12 people. Would you like to know how many writers we were talking about? Two,” he said, “My thought had been that they’d under-delivered, and a change was necessary. I had to do too much of it by myself last year, and that was only six episodes.”

Season 2 is slated for thirteen episodes and the director is not going to be sitting in a room by himself to write all of them. “We hired Glen Mazzara as our Number Two in the room. We consider him our head writer and he’s just a fantastic asset,” he said, “We’ve also got three other staff writers in Scott Gimple, Evan Reilly from Rescue Me, and Angela Kang. Plus Executive Producer Robert Kirkman, who wrote the original comic book, is also writing for us.”

So what’s on tap for Season 2? “It’s fair to say that the first six episodes were teeing up a lot of conflicts that will be more fully explored in our second season,” said Darabont, “We find a growing conflict with our two main guys, Rick [Andrew Lincoln] and Shane [Jon Bernthal]. We’re really excited about putting all of the characters on a chessboard and seeing how wonderfully and effectively we can toss conflict into the game.”

Darabont also mentioned how grateful he is to Kirkman for his understanding when it comes to transferring his beloved comic to the small screen. “He realizes how different the mediums of comics and television are from one another,” he said, “One of the things that really attracted me to this material in the first place was how smartly Kirkman incorporated the characters and their journey in trying to survive and better themselves in this world. It was a really adult approach. And because we’re a TV series, we’ve hopefully got years to flesh out that story and all of the aspects of who they are.”

The director also said he worked for five years to get The Walking Dead on television before AMC picked it up but that the network has been good to them. “We certainly get notes, but nothing that we believe doesn’t make sense. We feel very much in partnership with AMC,” he said, “Sometimes we have to compromise, sometimes they do. But we have to admit that a lot of the stuff they’re telling us is sensible, and none of it’s dumb. Believe me, I’ve gotten a lot of dumb notes in my time, and after 25 years in the business I can tell the difference.”

Asked if he’d given much thought to the upcoming Emmy Awards Darabont said, “You know, a little bit. And it’s awesome to be a part of that chatter. We were just blown away to get nominated for a Golden Globe, a DGA award, and a WGA award in our first year. But that stuff is out of our control.”
"

Subscribe to ED JOHNSON PRESENTS by Email

READ MORE - Frank Darabont talks about firing THE WALKING DEAD writers