What TWD TV series nearly became?

[Neil]

http://www.cinemablend.com/television/1550120/the-walking-dead-almost-had-an-absolutely-horrible-premise-heres-what-we-know


...the network preferred more of a procedural show. Hurd revealed that NBC wanted a series where two protagonists "solve a zombie crime of the week", making it a glorified cop show- but with a zombie here and there. We can presume the lead characters in this abomination of a series would be Rick and Shane, who would undoubtedly get into shenanigans as they attempted to solve zombie crimes.

OMG! :duh:

[shootemindehead]

Good lord. How does this stuff even get thought up?

[JDP]

It doesn't surprise me. Network executives have no friggin' clue when it comes to zombies. In fact, I am actually surprised that the zombies in TWD do not run and scream "BRAAAAAAINS!".

PS: I like Return of the Living Dead, but for what it is: a movie that pokes fun at zombie movies. It should not be taken as a "serious" horror zombie film. Yet when the average Joe thinks "zombies" what comes to his mind are in fact the farcical zombies from ROTLD.

[shootemindehead]

/\

Yup, that drives me round the feckin twist.

In fairness, 'The Walking Dead' has done an awful lot to do away with that in the general public's mind.

[Moon Knight]

NBC and HBO smh. Lol.

[MinionZombie]

Blimey ... that would have been a travesty.

More evidence that the network execs have no feckin' clue whatsoever. It really beggars belief - and considering how hugely successful TWD has been, it shows exactly how much those NBC execs know - sod all.

Agreed on the ROTLD issue - I really dig that film, but it's not what zombies need to be. The ROTLD style of thing is fine in small doses, but it strays far from the 'source text' (if you will) of the zombie. It is good that, particularly in the wake of those bullshit raptor screamers in the Dawn remake, that TWD is acting as a 'corrector' of the zombie record in the public consciousness.

[Moon Knight]

Not to mention that Michael Jackson's "Thriller" was released just a few years before ROTLD. Zombies were pretty much watered down at that point. By the time Day of the Dead was released people weren't really scared anymore.

[Rottedfreak]

I remember reading in a TWD letters page, Kirkman joking around saying he'd turn the book into a story where Rick and Tyreese would take a helicopter they were tracking (A traffic copter that led Rick, Glenn and Michonne to Woodbury) and tour the country solving mysteries.

[JDP]

Not to mention that Michael Jackson's "Thriller" was released just a few years before ROTLD. Zombies were pretty much watered down at that point. By the time Day of the Dead was released people weren't really scared anymore.

Romero has gone on record saying that he was disappointed that they did not give him the job of directing the Thriller video. But Jackson, Landis and Baker did a great job with the zombies in that video clip nonetheless. Of course, you have to overlook the parts where they dance with a zombified Michael Jackson, as it is a mandatory thing for a music video. They look decayed & nasty and move slowly like traditional zombies. When I first saw the great elaborate zombie make-up in Day of the Dead the first thing that came to mind was if Jackson's video had an influence on how the zombies in that movie looked like. This impression was confirmed later on by Mike Trcic:

"We wanted to use a lot of scleral lenses but there just wasn't the budget for it. That really could have enhanced the zombies. I don't know, I guess we were kind of thinking of Rick Baker's Thriller at the time and we were going for a Thriller look. So, that was playing pretty loudly in our minds - you know, how are these going to compare to Rick's zombies?"

https://books.google.com/books?id=jmT4CwAAQBAJ&pg=PT328&dq=%22and+we+were+going+for+a+Thriller+look%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiurYzHoOfOAhVB4CYKHQN1CskQ6AEIHjAA#v=on epage&q=%22and%20we%20were%20going%20for%20a%20Thriller% 20look%22&f=false

[Moon Knight]

Romero has gone on record saying that he was disappointed that they did not give him the job of directing the Thriller video. But Jackson, Landis and Baker did a great job with the zombies in that video clip nonetheless. Of course, you have to overlook the parts where they dance with a zombified Michael Jackson, as it is a mandatory thing for a music video. They look decayed & nasty and move slowly like traditional zombies. When I first saw the great elaborate zombie make-up in Day of the Dead the first thing that came to mind was if Jackson's video had an influence on how the zombies in that movie looked like. This impression was confirmed later on by Mike Trcic:

"We wanted to use a lot of scleral lenses but there just wasn't the budget for it. That really could have enhanced the zombies. I don't know, I guess we were kind of thinking of Rick Baker's Thriller at the time and we were going for a Thriller look. So, that was playing pretty loudly in our minds - you know, how are these going to compare to Rick's zombies?"

https://books.google.com/books?id=jmT4CwAAQBAJ&pg=PT328&dq=%22and+we+were+going+for+a+Thriller+look%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiurYzHoOfOAhVB4CYKHQN1CskQ6AEIHjAA#v=on epage&q=%22and%20we%20were%20going%20for%20a%20Thriller% 20look%22&f=false

Spot on! I never made the comparison but I can definitely see the influence. I loved Thriller then and still love it now. It really holds up.