Few days before the debut of The Walking Dead, Top TV staged a zombie invasion which also took place in 26 major cities around the world, particularly at each city's landmarks.
Hundreds of people whom Top TV had hired, donned zombie make up and gathered around Johannesburg. Elsewhere around the world fellow zombies gathered at NYC's Brooklyn Bridge, London's Big Ben, Madrid's Prado Museum, Athens' Acropolis and Istanbul's Bosphorus Bridge. The so-called "attacks" began in Hong Kong and Taipei at dawn on Tuesday, October 26 and then spread to Johannesburg and across the globe within 24 hours.
It ended in Los Angeles where cast, crew and media were there to watch the first episode early. The zombie invasion was under the direction of "The Walking Dead" 's legendary make-up artist Greg Nicotero.
Check out the zombie worldwide attacks, which happened on october 26th> http://thewalkingdead.foxinternationalchannels.com/
The US premiere of The Walking Dead which aired on Halloween pulled in a massive 5.3 million viewers! Just to give you an idea of how massive this number is- it was the biggest debut audience for any series premiere on any cable network this year!
Not only that it was also the highest figure for any series in the whole of FX’s history (even beating the award winning Mad Men- the network’s most successful series to date and Breaking Bad). It was also the most watched non-sports show on the Sunday night.
The Walking Dead star Sarah Wayne Callies has admitted that she thought bringing the zombie drama to television screens would be “impossible”.
The former Prison Break actress will of course play Lori Grimes, the wife of police officer Rick (Andrew Lincoln) in the series. She told SFX that the cable network had taken a risk in adapting Robert Kirkman’s original comic.
“[I thought] that it was absolutely ludicrous,” she said. “As an actor, it’s exciting to try something that’s such a risk.”
Callies also insisted that each episode of the show will be unique to the last.
“They’re almost in different genres from week to week,” she claimed. “Some of them are very silent and quiet. Some of them are covered in zombies and some of them have almost none. It’s so exciting to be a part of something like that.”
Throughout his career, Jon Bernthal has moved between television, film and theatre. Jon starred in the ABC supernatural drama, Eastwick, and also appeared in Tom Hank’s The Pacific. Jon’s film credits include the feature film Date Night, Roman Polanski’s The Ghost Writer (starring Ewan McGregor) and Night at the Museum. Jon Bernthal also has his own award-winning theatre company, Fovea Floods.
Jon Bernthal plays Shane Walsh, Rick’s partner in the sheriff’s department, and his best friend since high school. Shane helped to save Lori and Carl by getting them to Atlanta and out of their small town. Among the group of survivors Shane has become the de facto leader, a position he enjoys- he always lived in Rick’s shadow, and while he never consciously resented it, he’s relishing his newfound position of authority.
FX Africa has launched their awesome Walking Dead “all you need to know” website. It will bring you weekly episodic sneak previews, promotional clips, behind the scenes footage, show synopsis and episode guides, background info on all the survivors, sweet photos from the show, wallpaper downloads for your computer screens and lots of tweets, blogs and posts from all those social networks. Seriously, it’s a whole new world of Walking Dead knowledge and treats you just wont find anywhere else…so go and check it out!
The Think Tank Birmingham. The smell of ink, comic books and sweat fill the air. It’s the British Comic Book Show and The Walking Dead is the star. I arrive around 2.30pm in time to catch a Q&A panel about Marvel Comics and its upcoming projects. I sneak out just before the end and I bump into Jonathan Ross where we share a quick chat about the Walking Dead and how excited he is to watch the show. Then it was back to signing Turf copies for JR so I meandered over to Charlie Adlard’s post, where he was amusing his Walking Dead fans with a handshake and a smile. What a guy. We spend a minute discussing the run down of our panel and then another talking about his band (Charlie’s a drummer). We agreed to reconvene in “20”. Physically I feel like an outsider at BICS, but mentally, I’m in my element. The only person in the entire vicinity, let alone the country, to have watched the first three episodes of the Walking Dead. Boy these cartoon aficionados have no idea what’s in store for them in Screening Room 1. Finally the time has come. I sit down at the table, microphone clipped on my shirt, bottle of water in hand. The room slowly begins to fill up…50…55…Charlie seems to be running late, 159…200, oh dear, still no sign of Charlie. Then like a zombie from his own illustrations, Charlie appears. The audience go wild, this man is like a god, no he is God to these people. He joins me on the table putting the minds of the attendees at rest that they didn’t come all this way to listen to some FX representative plug it’s latest show. The lights dim and an exclusive clip of the show is screened. House lights up…silence. “Well, what did you think?” I ask Charlie. “What can I say,” he says, “it’s going to be brilliant”.
Recently Steve Yuen (a.k.a Glenn) spoke with The Walking Dead Fanclub about the character he plays in The Walking Dead. Yeun explained that he “definitely sees a close parallel with Glenn. He kind of is me when I was his age which is why I enjoy playing him so much. I remember being so eager to prove myself and to kind of be older than I actually looked and was. It was a constant struggle to be the more “mature” one of the group. You see that in Glenn, for sure, you see him slowly turning from a young boy to a man. He finds people to look up to and things to specifically take from them. It’s his kind of willingness to constantly do the right thing that I truly identify with.”
Yuen has been a fan of The Walking Dead comic series since 2005. He went on to say that his “favourite character is Carl. I always enjoy seeing the development of a character and nothing is more raw than it is with Carl. You see him, initially, as this boy who has no idea of the world yet. He gets put through the ringer when it comes to a crash course on life and, later on, has to make some crazy decisions. He grows up fast.”
Yeun also said that the episode in which he is covered in fake zombie guts almost made him gag. It’s all part of the job for Yeun though and something he’s willing to do so that he gets to the point in the series where we will see Glenn truly become a defined character.
“I definitely am looking forward to the point when he starts asserting himself more. In the book you see him start to really take a stand once he finds a reason to live (Maggie). It’s going to be so much fun when he starts to take control. You might see some glimpses of it right now but it’ll be great to see how it all pans out later on,” said Yeun.
The latest from our friends at The Walking Dead Podcast is that there are a number of actors and crew members involved with The Walking Dead who are currently active on Twitter. None of these crew members have been verified by an official independent dead body adjudicator but we’re pretty sure they’re all for real, not to mention alive and kicking: Bear McCreary (Composer) Gale Anne Hurd (Executive producer) IronE Singleton (T-Dog) Keith Allen Hayes (Unknown) Michael Rooker (Merle Dixon) Norman Reedus (Daryl Dixon) Robert Kirkman (Director/Writer/Executive producer) Steven Yeun (Glenn) Tony Moore (Writer) Viviana Chavez (Miranda)
Want to show the world how big a fan of The Walking Dead you really are? You can now customize your Mac or PC desktop with instant messenger icons from the AMC site. Choose anything from a cast shot to zombie wallpaper.
The series’ award-winning writer, director, and executive producer, Frank Darabont gives the scoop on why Lincoln was the right man to play former police officer Rick Grimes.
“Andy is so good in this. He has a fantastic ability to intrigue the viewer,” said Darabont. “It’s that Gary Cooper thing. You wonder what’s going on. You want to know what he’s thinking. He holds back just enough to draw you in — that’s a very rare knack for an actor.”
“You put this guy on a horse and he really does look like Gary Cooper. It’s great,” added Darabont.
In fact, the filmmaker said he realized early on that the story of a small group of survivors navigating a dangerous, zombie-filled America was more like a Western than he would’ve guessed coming into the project.
“I always kind of knew it, but it really came home as we’ve been shooting the last few days — it really does turn into a Western at times,” he explained. “You see [Lincoln] riding into the dusty streets of the town here, only it happens to be Atlanta with these skyscrapers, [and] it’s a very cool mix of visual elements.”
“There’s a little John Ford meets ‘I Am Legend’ thing going on here,” he laughed
The Daily Bash have done a great interview with 10 year old Addy Miller who plays the youngest zombie in The Walking Dead… Addy got her first role as an actor by playing a young Dakota Fanning on the film The Secret Life of Bees but she’s a bit of an old hat at playing zombies as this is not her first role playing a zombie- although she didn’t have the full make up or padding before! Addy’s favourite actors as include Joey King, Anne Hathaway and Heather O’Rourke and her favourite movies are the animated Spirit and the new Alice in Wonderland. But luckily she’s also a fan of horror movies and even likes Poltergeist! In the interview below Addy talks about her favourite moments from working on the show, stunt training and impressing Frank Darabont- not bad for a ten-year old! Q: You’re only 10 years old so it looks like you’ll have a great career if everything works out, what kinds of movies do you want to make as you grow older? Do you want to keep doing horror films? Addy: Well I don’t mind doing some horror, but I like dramas and also want to do a happy movie. I am also interested in some behind the scenes stuff, you know, a crew member. Q: Greg Nicotero is one of the greatest makeup and effects artists of all time, did he do your makeup? What was it like seeing yourself all made up like that, from what we’ve seen it’ pretty horrific and realistic? Addy: Greg Nicotero is the nicest guy! He designed my makeup. He was who did all my fittings. On the day of my scene, he and his crew worked on me. On set, Greg put on the blood and eye contacts on me. I had about 2 hours with the other guys and about 1 hour with Greg. Seeing my makeup when it was done actually made me a little sick to my stomach. I couldn’t look at myself, I thought I looked so scary. Everyone on set kept looking at me and saying how awesome I looked. Greg did a great job and it felt good. Q: Since you’re fairly young, are you going to be watching The Walking Dead when it comes out this Halloween? Addy: Of course - I have to watch myself on TV (laughing). I actually read the comic books…love them! I am waiting for volume 13 to come out now. Q: What was your favorite memory from working on the show with the cast and crew? Addy: The stunts for sure! I had so much fun. It was the first time I went through stunt training and got to do that on camera. I had pads everywhere on my body too, and the stunt teacher worked with me practicing on every break to make sure I would not get hurt. I also liked it when Frank Darabont jumped up and get excited and dance after my scenes. It really made me feel good. He was so funny. Working with Greg also was a great memory and he is the one person I miss most from being on set.
Move over vampires as we are predicting zombies to be THE next big thing to hit the small screen. For quite some time now we’ve been bombarded with TV series and movies featuring our favourite blood sucking friends. Twilight, The Vampire Diaries and of course True Blood, have made vampires one of the biggest trends to dominate TV and film in recent years.
But what about zombies? In film, zombies have been a real success- just look at 28 Days Later, Zombieland and Dawn of the Dead. But sadly on TV zombies haven’t been so popular. They seem to have been relegated to something of a figure of fun- think Charlie Brooker’s take on zombies in his recent series on E4 “Dead Set”. Until now that is… “The Walking Dead” has made it clear that it wants to fly in the face of these zombie stereotypes by dealing with some hard hitting socio-cultural issues and keeping to the more serious tone of Kirkman’s comics. Personally I can’t wait.
Like lots of monsters, Zombies have their roots in folklore. According to some researchers, the walking dead originated in Haiti, a country also known for their witchcraft, voodoo and black magic trickery. There are several possible origins for the word “zombie”. These include jumbie, the West Indian term for “ghost”, and nzambi, the Kongo word meaning “spirit of a dead person”. A law condemning zombie creation went into effect in Haiti in 1835. Article 246 of the Haitian Penal Code classifies the administration of a substance that creates a prolonged period of lethargy without causing death as attempted murder. If the substance causes the appearance of death and results in the burial of the victim, the act is classified as murder.
Although zombies appeared in movies as early as 1919 many people credit George A Romero with setting the standard for modern zombies. In the classic movie “Night of the Living Dead,” Romero portrayed zombies as slow-moving, flesh-eating corpses, reanimated by radiation from a satellite returning from Venus. The radiation affected the recent, unburied dead, and the resulting zombies were invulnerable until someone destroyed their brains or separated their heads from their bodies. In “Night of the Living Dead,” zombies were neither intelligent nor self-aware. They had a very limited use of tools, mostly confined to using blunt objects as cudgels. In Romero’s later work, zombies became somewhat capable of thought, and in some cases self-aware. They still generally moved slowly and had minimal intelligence.
Many movies and video games have used Romero’s concept of zombies. For the most part, zombies are:
· Newly dead corpses reanimated by radiation, chemicals, viruses, sorcery or acts of God
· Human, although some depictions include zombie animals
· Very strong, but not very fast or agile
· Impervious to pain and able to function after sustaining extreme physical damage
· Invulnerable to injury, except for decapitation or destruction of the brain
· Relentlessly driven to kill and eat
· Afraid of fire and bright lights
Tell us your favourite Zombie depiction on our facebook page. We’d love to compare notes!
There are certain rules one must follow when it comes to the zombie genre. Films such as Zombieland and 28 Days Later make it clear that rules are key to survival in a zombie-infested post apocalyptic world.
AMC’s Walking Dead Twitter page has been tweeting “Zombie Rules” all this month and they are currently at rule 8, with more to come. Please make a note of the following in order to survive a possible attack: Zombie Rule #1: Ability to run is based on the amount of time a zombie has been undead, and how much decay has set in. Zombie Rule #2: Zombies decay but at a much slower rate than humans, and it’s still possible to differentiate between young and old zombies. Zombie Rule #3: Zombies are like lions: if they’ve eaten, you can walk by them without fear, but a pack of hungry zombies will attack you. Zombie Rule #4: The quickest speed of any zombie is a shambling run. see Night of the Living Dead. NO sprinters exist. Zombie Rule #5: Zombies are not dexterous. They cannot pick up or use any items more complex than a rock or a stick. Zombie Rule #6: Zombies have poor eyesight but they do have a strong sense of smell. Zombie Rule #7: Zombies cannot speak but can communicate by pack mentality. The herd tends to move together if they sight food. Zombie Rule #8: There is no overt recognition of people or places, there is a sense of familiarity that can dictate where a zombie moves.
