Let’s take a moment to appreciate the success of Breaking Bad‘s Vince Gilligan, Mad Men‘s Matthew Weiner, Sons of Anarchy‘s Kurt Sutter, The Good Wife‘s Robert and Michelle King, Justified‘s Graham Yost, and Boardwalk Empire‘s Terence Winter, among others, all showrunners who have (generally) peacefully crafted their dramas in their own often brilliant vision — because sh*t’s about to get really frustrating and childish.
Several insiders confirm that Kirkman, whose detailed graphic novels form the basis of the series, is “very proprietary,” as one puts it. One adds, “I believe Robert wants to maintain a certain amount of his control, and AMC needs Robert for the fan base.” But despite the vitriol, some sources involved with Walking Dead say Kirkman was one of several producers who had issues with Mazzara and his vision.
One source says Mazzara’s shortcomings in running the series during the most recent third season became “abundantly clear…especially for the second half of the season.” This source says production was shut down “several times” because of a lack of material.
To date, Kirkman has responded to the criticism only with a restrained tweet: “@sutterink is brilliant and Sons is my favorite show on TV. Still, it’s upsetting to see him ranting about things he knows nothing about.” AMC declined comment. (Via)
I know I’m not in The Business and have never eaten from a Craft Services Table and don’t have any Professional Escorts on my phone, but I’m a little skeptical when it comes to, “Especially for the second half of the season.” Under Mazzara’s watch, The Walking Dead went from frustratingly boring to still inconsistent, yes, but also highly entertaining and you’re not actively rooting for every character to “get it” anymore (only some). Why not just crowdsource showrunning to the Internet? That’s basically what’s happening anyway: “OK, first, this one zombie gets hit in the head with a shovel, and then another zombie has its brains splattered on the sidewalk, and then Maggie takes her top off, and then Daryl says something Classic Daryl-like, and then Michonne does something badass, and then 12,000 other zombies get it in the span of 31 seconds. THAT’S A WRAP EVERYONE. Now if you’ll excuse us, we’re going to eat our weight in mini-hot dogs in our totally boss trailer.”
Or maybe the problem is no one wants to take credit for this.
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The second half of the season is the stuff that hasn’t aired yet. Not the good stuff from the uh second half of the first half of the third season.
Exactly. It’s a bit too early to judge since no one outside of the show has seen it.
I misinterpreted what the article was saying. Revised above.
Thank you.
Fractions be tough yo
The only way this could come off sounding worse is in addition to bashing season three they followed it up with “we would really like to get back to the pacing of season 2″
Sadly it’s probably that, kinda. They say they were “running out of material” but they have barely used 10% of what’s in the comics if I’m correct. AMC probably told them they couldn’t move fast enough, because they want to milk the cow as long as possible. And apparently, Kirkman doesn’t mind that.
“then Maggie takes her top off, and then Daryl says something Classic Daryl-like”
I’d watch that for 45 minutes plus commercials.
agreed. Id probably watch a whole season of that, nothing else.
I ate at a Craft Service Table once. It was glorious.
Not to brag, but in college I microwaved a Kraft single in a hot dog bun. It was ok.
Now I’m hungry.
Why exactly do they need to keep Kirkman happy? Honestly the comic series kind of loses some luster after the Prison, and really the show has veered far enough from the source material to stand on it’s own two feet.
Besides, Kirkman didn’t create Daryl, so scoreboard TV Showrunners.
#1 – the show is entirely based on the Kirkman books, and like Josh states, if Kirkman ever left the show, the fanbase would go with him. they need him because it’s HIS universe. It’s akin to trying to make the first 3 Star Wars movies without Lucas’s input.
Also, Kirkman DID partly create Daryl… since he is one of the showrunners and producers on the show. it was him and the other writers on the show.
Kirkman is not a showrunner. He hasn’t the slightest idea how to run a show. That’s why they hired Darabont, to create the show and run it, and Mazzara to take over for Darabont. It’s always struck me that he hires these talented showrunners who do their job and get it going, then gets upset when it’s popular and it’s not all associated with him and then he gets rid of them. He doesn’t want it to be Darabont’s Walking Dead or Mazzara’s Walking Dead. It always has to be Kirkman’s. Basically, AMC accepts the rabid view of the Kirkman fanboys and is willing to jeopardize the quality and popularity of the show, because they think they will lose their core audience if they don’t back Kirkman and his ‘Mine mine!’ viewpoint. To see this in action, you have only to look at the comments of TWD fan types. But they’re wrong, the show is bigger than that and Darabont and Mazzara were their two chances to make it a real show that rivals some of the other great shows on cable. But AMC doesn’t have any faith in the creators/showrunners of their shows and are notorious cheapskates.
I’m wondering just how much of the show’s fanbase actually read the comics? It’s the biggest show on cable and regularly beats network shows but would anybody but the really hardcore fanboys actually care if Kirkman left?
I wouldn’t call The Walking Dead some hidden little underground gem, but my experience with the comic is that many people who watch the show have no idea it was a comic to begin with. I’ve met tons of people who love the show and when I mention it was a comic they had no idea. I’m just saying they could kick Kirkman to the curve and the show would still eat up the ratings.
A lot of the people I know who watch the show voraciously have no idea it came from a (not very good) comic book series. The show would totally survive, perhaps flourish, without Kirkman. AMC has backed the comic guy over the creatives. I’d call him more than a comic guy if I thought the comic was actually good. It’s just a 20th generation copy of Romero’s movies. I’m not saying that Darabont or Mazzara were zombie pioneers, but at least they were trying some other things and had story arc ideas and were breaking the story out into new areas. In particular, Mazzara is a good showrunner, but as far as I know, is not a horror guy. It would take him time to find the new areas and he might go for stuff that is already genre standard, but as long as it was done well, it would still be entertaining, which is what the first half of the third season was. Now, if you wanted to adapt a zombie style comic that is much better, you’d have to go for something like Crossed. Hyper violent and pitiless; it’s some next level shit that is what The Walking Dead thinks it is. The Walking Dead, in comic book form, is Middle American zombie soap opera and has rarely been allowed to rise from that standard except for brief moments on Darabont and Mazzara’s watches. I particularly enjoyed the running joke about Daryl and his animal killing crossbow. The Owl was my favorite.
@eugeniedfranval–agreed. The show needs to be good more than it needs any one person. Most people I know watch the show, and very few, including myself, ever read the comics.
I’ve read the first three books of GoT at least a dozen times since Storm of Swords was released, as well as Sandkings and Dreamsongs Vol I and II, so I’m obviously a huge GRRM fan, but if HBO ever ditches him, I’ll be fine with that as long as the onscreen product doesn’t suffer.
The books really did drop off after the prison for awhile, but seriously, go pick up the last trade that came out in December. Vol. 17, I think. Shit just got real again. Probably the realest.
@eugeniedfranval – your comments are laughable. #1 – obviously Kirkman is not a showrunner and didn’t know the first thing about television. He himself openly admitted this at many points throughout the whole birth of the television series. It was Frank Darabont that initially did great things with the concept and the actual translation from the book to television. Even common sense tells you that this isn’t an EASY process. Any asshole can take a story from a graphic novel or comic book, hire some actors, find a set and film a “version” of it. but to actually succeed at translating a great comic into a great show? That takes fucking talent. I’m hesitant to give any large amount of spotlight to Mazzara for this success. Obviously it was MANY people that work on the show including the performance of the actors, but it’s quite obviously Darabont’s initial early direction at successfully translating it to screen, and Kirkman’s creation of the material itself.
#2 – your insistence that Kirkman has a “mine! mine!” viewpoint and that it has to be labeled as his creation… well, yeah. that’s because IT’S HIS FUCKING CREATION. I’m blown away at this imbecilic notion. Yeah, ass. George Lucas wanted people to know that he created Star Wars too – because it came out of his fucking brain, and now it’s successful. if YOU created a massively successful universe out of thin fucking air, you’d want to tout it a little too. The fact that you don’t think that TWD comic isn’t very good either is laughable too, but whatever, to each his own – I think it’s sales and the popularity of the show speak for themselves. your comment “it’s just a 20th generation copy of Romero’s movies” says it all – The Walking Dead and Romero’s movies couldn’t be ANY MORE DIFFERENT FROM EACH OTHER. practically the ONLY thing they have in common with each other is that they feature zombies. you obviously have no fucking clue whereof you speak. So essentially I don’t know why I’m even wasting my time. But try to think before you comment on stuff you have no idea about.
I started reading The Walking Dead comic many many years ago, before ANYONE knew what the hell it was. that’s kind of hard to imagine now, seeing how popular it’s gotten. but in a small comics shop in Miami Gardens where I was living at the time, the shop owner recommended it to me because he was personally a fan. I think my first issue I bought was issue 20 (I still have them all). So many of the store’s customers became excited about the book BECAUSE IT WAS AWESOME. Not because of the hype, not because of the many branches it was reaching out into (television, video game, novel), not because of how popular it had gotten (it wasn’t, people still had no idea what it was). Because it was awesome. It was well-written, it was exciting and suspenseful, gruesome, it didn’t hold back, and it told a great fucking story, more than anything else. When you went into the store on Wednesday to pick up the new issue and you saw 2 other guys picking it up and talked to them about it, they were just as excited as you, and other people overheard us and would come over and we would just GUSH. the next month, those same people were now picking it up along with us. the book gained a following over the course of many years because it was, and is, awesome. we can have a conversation about it maybe losing steam over the course of many years and story arcs, but that’s for another time. the point is that there is a REASON the book and now the television show, is INCREDIBLY successful. Not mildly successful, not somewhat successful. HUGELY successful. TWD comic and graphic novels now make up over 50% of what comic distributor Diamond Distribution ships every month. FIFTY PERCENT OF WHAT THEY SHIP. TWD television show is now the most watched cable television show OF ALL FUCKING TIME. and it’s all because Robert Kirkman created a universe and characters and story arcs that are hands down, just brilliant.
so for you to not give him much credit, or any credit, is ridiculous and laughable. more than anything else it just makes you look like a fool, to be honest.
Nerds!
I don’t know, if he oversaw the decision to have one of the characters ride around on a motorcylce in a world where zombies are attracted to loud noises he probably deserves to get fired.
Seriously just rooting for the zombies to win at this point.
That’s always bugged me as well. Also, did all the bicycles blow up during the initial zombie outbreak? That’s probably the most efficient mode of travel in a world were the roads are often congested with broken down vehicles, and loud noises will bring upon shambling death
Get a prius! It’s the perfect apocalypse care, and as U-Turn discovered in the last watchable season of weeds “They’re real quiet, good for sneaking up on a motherfucker”
Bicycles would be the best. No sound, you’d never run out of gas, you could weave in and out of traffic, you go faster then a zombie, great exercise.
Let’s be CLEAR about this. The Walking Dead television show is – at the very LEAST – 75% successful because of the universe that Robert Kirkman has created with his books, and has since been translated to the television screen. Sure there are factors that weren’t in the books such as Daryl and Merle Dixon, however Kirkman had a major hand in creating those characters as well (to differentiate the TV show from the book). So we can all say that Kirkman is THE major impetus for the show doing well, yes?
After the first season is when Mazzara really took over. I loved the 1st season, especially what Frank Darabont did with the premiere.. holy crap. I think we can all agree though, that a LOT of season 2 (when Mazzara was running it) was yawn-inducing. Sure there were cool moments… but 95% of it was them sitting around Herschel’s farm for fuck’s sake.
Season 3 is looking to be a lot more exciting, with them finally making it to the prison, and the introduction of The Governor and Michonne. But exactly how much of that is Mazzara? ZERO PERCENT OF IT. This is all stuff from Kirkman’s books… some of the most popular material from his books. Mazzara seems like a nice guy but I’m questioning how much of the show’s popularity is actually due to him. I’m willing to go as far as to say, probably not much at all.
Mazzarra didnt take over until the second half of the second season. AKA the good half
Darabont left after the 1st season, so I’m sure Mazzara was technically the “showrunner” for most of the 2nd season. and to be honest, there was no good half of the 2nd season. for the most part it was pretty boring, with great little details throughout. only the last episode was brilliant.
Incorrect. Darabont left after filming the boring 1st half of Season 2. He was even at Comic-Con the previous year promoting the 2nd sason (whcih they had already begun filming) and then his departure was announced within the next week.
then I’m mistaken, but my point still stands. Mazzara had very little to do with the show’s success. I’m sure he did a fine job while he was showrunner, but like Kirkman said, Kurt Sutter didn’t know whereof he was speaking.
I’m going to have to disagree with you a bit on this. Kirkman has been involved in the show since day 1. And, not to say that he’s not doing fine work on the TV show, if he’s the main impetus behind the increase in quality in the third season, why was season 2 so goddamn awful? You can argue whether or not the last half of season 2 was actually “good” or not, but it was definitely an improvement in pacing and writing compared to the first half. And, to be honest, that first season? Not so great. Yes, the pilot was amazing, but it just sort of fell apart after that. The first season finale didn’t exactly bode well for the quality of the series and season continued right on with the suck.
we can split hairs about what half of what season we like better than the other, but the simple fact is that this is the most watched show *ever* in the history of cable television, and definitely one of the most popular (if not THE most popular) in recent history. so for us to be arguing about what season we like most and for what reason is a bit ridiculous.
long story short, Kirkman is the main reason this show is so popular, and the show IS popular. Mazzara had little to nothing to do with it.
“Let’s be clear about this!”, you said! That’s how Barack Obama starts talking when there’s no teleprompter. Cool!
Seriously though, I think you’ve giving Kirkman too much credit. The country was ready for a zombie apocalypse series. It was a genre that was gaining popularity fast. Kirkman just happened to have some ready-made material for the kick-start. It doesn’t matter who runs the show. They just need writers who can keep inventing plausible reasons for violent conflict in the world they’ve already created. You don’t need the guy that wrote the comics.
@Secretary Not Sure – haha, sorry, I guess you can call me Barack from now on?
I don’t think I’m giving Kirkman too much credit. a statement like “the country was ready for a zombie apocalypse series” is a bit curious and awkward. #1, how can you tell that? is there a scale that comes out every month based on consumer interests on things we haven’t optioned yet? “yes, Jeeves, it seems we can look into the creation of a show based on Mummies because our findings clearly show that the country is ready for a mummy show.” #2, even if that WAS true, just because people are ready for “A Zombie Show” doesn’t mean that ANY zombie show would be successful. for every Walking Dead universe there’s about ten million Walking Deadesque universes created by “me too” authors that probably fucking SUCK. the reason why The Walking Dead is successful is because it’s really, really good. the story arcs, the characters, everything. it’s just insanely well-written.
Also I’d be willing to bet that your assertion that “the country was ready for a zombie apocalypse series” probably isn’t true. between vampires and zombies there’s probably been way too MUCH of this material out. if it was any other post-apocalyptic vampire or zombie material I doubt it would have gotten as much of a response. people responded to TWD because it’s just really well done. just like over the course of many years, people responded to the Walking Dead comic book because it’s really well done. and that’s EXACTLY why you need the guy that wrote the comics.
I hear you, he definitely deserves the credit, and it is a very good story as far as the genre goes. The zombie apocalypse genre is fascinating, but usually only until the dust settles in the aftermath, then it’s just grinding out survival. I think that’s why people like the pilot so much compared to the rest. It’s not because it was better written, directed, acted, whatever. It was just the best part of the genre. Personally, I thought the whole first season was really good.
But, TV is TV and comics are comics. The best comic book writer in the world may not be in the top 100 teleplay writers of all time, and inversely, TV writers probably couldn’t translate their best stuff to comic form. I really like The Dark Tower comics, and I’m glad that Stephen King had the sense to outsource it to the right people instead of writing them himself. George R.R. Martin was already a screenwriter for TV before A Game of Thrones, so he knows what works for the medium, but if he didn’t, I would have no problem with HBO taking control from him if that’s what they thought would make for a better onscreen product. Let me ask you this–if TWD was on HBO and they were going to reduce Kirkman’s role, would you still have a problem with it? Because HBO is King Shit of TV mountain.
I definitely agree with you about TV being different from comics. I don’t think anybody is saying that TWD television show is successful in the sense that it was well done, because of Kirkman. obviously he didn’t know an ass from an elbow about television when the show came to fruition, and he himself admitted it many times.
I AM, however, saying that the show is in part successful because of the material he created that draws people in.
Your HBO question is a good one, and I have to admit I’m a bit mixed on it. HBO is a bit unique in the fact that they’ve been creating excellent television for so long, that I’d probably be a bit more relaxed about it if they reduced Kirkman’s role. I wouldn’t be happy about it by any means, but considering it was HBO, that would change things a bit for me. Only because it was HBO.
“He didn’t show up until the second half of the third part of the 2nd season.”
This is what we sound like right now. Just saying.
All I’m saying is “Poncho Daryl”=Sexytime Daryl
at first when I heard that Mazzara was leaving the show I was a bit worried. But if it has something to do with him and Kirkman disagreeing then I cant see this change being a bad thing. Lets be real. Kirkman is the reason TWD is what it is. Not Mazzara, not even Darabont. I think AMC should just let Kirkman run the show. If it comes down to Kirkmans vision or Mazzaras vision I take Kirkmans 11 times out of 10.
Not to take anything away from what Mazzara did in his time as showrunner. Season 3 has been badass thus far….
I can hardly wait for the moment when AMC announces that Kirkman is the new showrunner, after nobody else will touch the job. Then we’ll see how bad Darabont and Mazzara were, won’t we? After all this, I can only assume that’s what’s coming. He could appoint another fall guy, but I don’t think he can stand watching someone else get accolades again.
If Kirkman left, I’m not sure the show could keep going or not since it’s his, but if it could, it would lose little to no fans because of it. The VAST majority of people that watch the show have never read the comics and couldn’t give less of a shit if he has any say in the show.
Regardless of any of that, the show sucks. The characters actions and motivations are so completely dumb, I’m not really sure what’s enjoyable about it. (Besides Daryl, obvs.) The comic sucks now and is fairly unreadable these days. If AMC had one halfway decent executive producer, they’d change the show around completely. Kill Rick, kill Carl, tell the story from some other point of view. Make the Governor the new anit-hero or just follow Daryl on his Zombie road adventures. Tell a different story. It’s doing a limp dick impression of the comic now anyway, so just swing for the fences and make a change.
I wouldn’t go so far as to say the show sucks, but I can’t figure out why it’s so successful.
i was following all you said till the use of the phrase obvs. I mean you craft a great point then say ” (Besides Daryl, obvs.)”
Whatevs.
I love how so many people are saying “Kirkman makes it popular, it would fall apart without him.” Lets be real, the show isn’t beat for beat on the comics so using them as a base then crafting your own narrative isn’t that far-fetched. A talented show-runner can use the zombie apocalypse framework and make a great story without having to go back to the Kirkman well.
I can honestly say that i wouldnt want to watch the show without him involved. Do you have any idea how many zombie comics came and failed. The man knows story telling, and while he may not be a tv man, he brings a control that keeps it from turning into something “return of the living dead” like Instead of keeping it “night of the living dead”. I understand that eventually he will ruin it as all men tend to ruin their legacy rather than walk away gracefully, but it is just beginning of the series. Let him establish the series, nurture and grow it then we can get the pitchforks and torches and chase the fucker out of town.
Shouldn’t it be a good thing that Robert Kirkman still has plenty of control over the TV adaptation of a franchise he created?
Most people that love the show could give a maggie’s nips that it was a comic..
Im somewhere in the middle, dirtynouveau is coming across as a total Kirkman Comic fanboy and half of what he is saying is nonsense, but I dont entirely disagree with him. I think it is good that Kirkman is involved with the show, and he deserves to be, because he created the comic book. But a series is not a Comic book, in the comic books there is no cinematography, Direction, actor improvisations, you arent under budget restrictions or have to worry about actors leaving or any such nonsense. To say that Kirkman is 75% responsible for the shows success is BS. TWD gets 10 million viewers every week. I am willing to bet that a large percentage of those people had never touched the comic book before the show was released. I hadnt, but have read them since, and am halfway through the prison story (volume 7) and really like them. BUT…to say Kirkman is 75% of the reason the show is so good, is wayyy wrong imo. Darabont, AMC, the writers (including Kirkman), production crew, Greg Nicotero and his team, and the stella cast are the reason for the shows success.
While Kirkman deserves BIG kudos for creating the source material, the comic book is his baby, where as the show is very much a collaborative effort and at this point, in my humble opinion, if god forbid Robert Kirkman was struck by a bus tomorrow, the show now has its own fan base and could, and would continue just fine without him