The Truth Comes Out: Frank Darabont was Fired from The Walking Dead

Posted by on August 11th, 2011   Filed under: Books/Comics, Horror, Rumours, TV
Source: Hollywood Reporter

A couple of weeks ago, we were all shocked to learn that Frank Darabont had decided to leave his position as showrunner on AMC’s hit series The Walking Dead. The timing of his announcement seemed a bit strange considering that the show’s second season was currently in production and he had just appeared at Comic-Con to promote it, but the assumption was that he was eager to get back to making feature films instead. Now this week we are slowly starting to discover that there is a lot more to the story than that. The Hollywood Reporter recently published a massive article exposing some pretty questionable decisions that were made by the higher ups at AMC. Most importantly, they are claiming that Darabont didn’t leave the show willingly — as it turns out, he was fired.

Much has already been said about the fact that the first season of The Walking Dead was a huge success. The show’s finale reportedly drew 6 million viewers, and it was consistently outperforming both Mad Men and Breaking Bad. For some reason, however, AMC was only interested in cutting costs for the second season. The network supposedly pocketed a tax credit for filming in Georgia that should have gone back into the show, and they have requested idiotic changes like shooting more episodes indoors and having zombies off-screen to save on make-up costs. Darabont fought back against these requests, and that seems to be the main reason that he was dismissed.

On the flip side, some people have claimed that Darabont is “notoriously a pain in the ass” and that he is known for “taking a feature-film approach to television”, which led to an inflated budget for the show. But when it comes to the most popular show on your network, I don’t know why you would want to cut any corners. While the show can probably get by without Darabont, the cast and crew are now demoralized, and what’s more, the actors are reportedly scared to talk about what happened for fear of having their characters killed off. Does this news change your opinion of Darabont’s departure? Do you think AMC’s cost-cutting will affect the quality of the show or is it just the reality of working in TV?



  • Darksiders

    Why?

    CUZ HE SUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCKS!!!

  • Darksiders

    Hmm…now that I’ve read the article I take it back. It’s because AMC sucks!!!

  • Kasper

    If this is true, I almost hope the second season tanks and AMC lose a lot of money, thereby cancelling the show. It’s worth the end of a decent show to have them taught a lesson so they won’t do this kind of shenanigans again.

  • Once again the “suits” kill their babies. Here, before they actually get a dominant foothold/fan base. So short sighted. the levels it reached in film-like storytelling IS THE REASON IT SUCCEEDED

  • Sly

    The suits at AMC should be fed to the zombies. They simply are not qualified for the job. Killing a show which had a record breaking finale (biggest 18-49 demo rating ever for a drama on basic cable) The potential is huge. This sure can make lots of money. Or was this show torrented to death?

  • Andrew

    Strange being as how everyone agrees that AMC is doing some amazing things. I can only imagine at this point that the AMC suits have large egos after all this success the network has had and believes that the network executives and producers are more responsible for that success than the shows’ creative personal (ie Darabont).

    It’ll be interesting to see what happens with the show and we’ll see how important a single creative force is to a show like Walking Dead.

  • This is disheartening news. I certainly hope it does not signal the state of things to come for the network. They have done a fabulous job with original programming, and have caused others to step up their game.

    Let’s hope they learn from this. Even if Darabont is a pain, this is not good PR for the network.

  • Nuno

    I agree with Shannon, this makes AMC look very bad. However, If one of their shows has to plummet and end its run prematurely, I’d be least heartbroken if it were The Walking Dead or The Killing. I NEED my Breaking Bad and Mad Men fix.

  • HBO should buy this series and give it the treatment the material deserves.

  • I just read the whole THR article and I really see this as AMC got way out over their skis and are to young and dumb to go with a winner. I remember watching the show and thinking wow that is a lot of budget on big exteriors. The THR article confirms since last year they had plans to try and scale back the production value. Frank, and every other sensible creative TV type, thought they would let up after the ratings bonanza but they didn’t.

  • Mikey T

    Gord, you took the words right out of my mouth. HBO would do an awesome job with this material, but unfortunately it’s too late I believe. This show was the best thing on television since Lost. The major networks are too scared to take on serialized shows with a major on going mythology so it’s left up to the secondary networks to fill the void. Speaking of Lost, on a side note, I heard that Michael Emerson’s new show “Person of Interest” scored through the roof in focus groups. CBS said it scored higher than any other pilot it had ever tested. If you haven’t seen the trailer, you all should check it out, it looks pretty awesome.

  • Justice

    When you have a series of stories like these involving nearly all of a networks major properties, I guarantee that other producers and industry folks are paying attention. AMC is just shooting themselves in the foot, as people will not want to work with them and go to rival networks with their properties.

  • People realize the show wasn’t very good, right?

    Darabont’s publicist deserves a raise for that article.