Worldwide Zombie Invasion!

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 Walking Dead US premiere attracts monster viewing figures

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.

Dead Doubts

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.”

A bit about Jon Bernthal (a.k.a Shane Walsh)

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 CREATES THE WALKING DEAD WORLD

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!

www.fxafrica.tv/shows/the-walking-dead

FX Meets Charlie Adlard, The Walking Dead’s Visionary

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”.

Steve Yeun Talks Glenn

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 Walking Dead Crew On Twitter

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)