No,
TWD isn't going to kill zombie movies, primarily for economic reasons. Box office revenues are simply too essential to large studio Hollywood, and when successful the resulting profit margin there + the after box-office market will always tempt the money men into pulling that slot machine investment handle.
Look at Avatar for example. Great in a lot of ways as a movie, but also very pro-environment/anti-overconsumption in its preaching at the viewer. ALL that the people who invested in it care about is the huge return they've seen on their investment. Enough that they're essentially gifting the director/scriptwriters with the green to do an obviously ill-fated Underwater Avatar sequel. Why, when all their advisers are providing good reasons the sequel will be a debacle, are such astute investors heaping money on a project they know will, when judged on its own merits, be to the Romero movies what Survival is when compared to Dawn/Day?
Those investors know that a significant cross-section of the populace adored Avatar, and will, against all common sense, shell out (for the most part) to see it in theaters for the Ooohs and Ahhs of the amazing visuals. By the time word spreads the movie blows, they'll STILL have seen about +80-85% of the box office returns on the original off simple sequel momentum. Those investors wont care the sequels after-box-office proceeds will be dismal, because knowing that up front they can grab their profits and bail on the effort to squeeze any kind of profit out of a sub-par DVD situation.
Now what does this movie from a completely different genre have to do with zombie movies and their continuing existence? Simply this, sequel momentum created by an extremely successful original production is larceny by another name. It is a concerted effort, based on the understanding that fans of the first movie will almost invariably give the second a try, to reduce production quality by reducing investment, thereby guaranteeing those same money men will see nearly equal returns to their original investment once you take into account they've spent much less on the sequel yet can reasonably expect that 80-85% of the original's revenues all the same.
They know how to rip us off using our enjoyment of honestly successful movies, coupled with our desire to recapture that enjoyment by continuing (or so we always hope) the immersion in a setting, with characters and story we very much enjoyed. The discerning moviegoer is aware of all this and is cautious enough not to get consistently sucked in by the Hollywood Sequel-suckerama, but the discerning moviegoer only represents about 10% of the total populace interested in said movie(s)...much like 90% of the world allows themselves to be ripped off in countless other ways yet never learn.
There's no way to replicate this kind of con game in an episode by episode format, where you need long-term viewership to power the commercial advertising of TV Land. So, for as long as it remains true that an investor can invest X in a successful original movie, but only invest X minus 20-25% on the sequel and receive equal profits in both cases, the movie format (by that I mean the Theater Box Office model) will continue to dominate, and thus you can continue to expect that, regardless of what happens in TV Land, the bulk of the talented actors/actresses, writers and directors will stick with movies over TV. Especially the actors, who now have generations of cautionary tales in the form of the many typecast actors that proceeded them and generally ruined their overall careers by hitching their wagon to a TV show.
I could have made the better creative argument to oppose the notion of TV versions of any genre ever supplanting their Movie Theater counterparts, but this very cynical yet eminently correct (albeit the poor structure of my post) accomplishes the purpose. Onscreen activities are about separating you from your money in the same way a casino separates its guests from their money first and foremost for those who control the money. So even if 100% of the best actors, writers and directors suddenly woke up with a burning desire to do TV work, their love of money, fame (for those onscreen) and privilege would soon drag them back to making movies as surely as light failing to escape the gravity of a black hole.
In that regard, TWD will ultimately have little enduring effect on the manner in which stories are told onscreen. Which isn't to say it lacks the potential of creating more enjoyable zombie-themed material on TV. Just that any creative "offspring" its success breeds on TV will like TWD remain the exception, while the zombie movie remains the rule.
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Originally Posted by MagicMoonMonkey
) it's probably because at the moment it's just overkill. Zombies have invaded popular culture like never before: from Brad Pitt budgeted popcorn movies to comedies like Zombieland and everything inbetween. 
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