During an Emmy roundtable with a group of his peers (including writer/producers from Sons of Anarchy and Boardwalk Empire) Frank Darabont was brutally honest as usual, discussing his fears of an impending budget cut for The Walking Dead. As he’s said before he’s had no problem with AMC trying to censor him or change things but that’s not the issue.
“Creatively I have no complaints thus far,” Darabont says. “But I believe if they do move ahead with what they’re talking about, it will affect the show creatively … in a negative way. Which just strikes me as odd. If you have an asset, why would you punish it?”
The man has a point. The Walking Dead is AMC’s biggest hit so far and if they want viewers to return in October they’re going to have to up their game, especially for those of us disappointed by the slow decline of quality in the first season. Robert Kirkman recently mentioned that they wanted to get Stephen King or Joe Hill on board to write an episode for Season 2, so perhaps this is what Darabont’s upset about. Cause really, how huge would that be, even just in terms of marketing potential?
As far as what makes it on screen, the physical effects in the first season were fantastic (KNB FX never fails in that regard) but if they do more digital they need to take a long hard look at that explosion at the end of season one. Ugh.