With AMC’s extremely popular The Walking Dead returning with new episodes tonight, I recently landed an exclusive interview with executive producer Gale Anne Hurd.  She talked about what it’s been like watching the show become a worldwide phenomenon, pressure from the fans, having a bigger budget for season 3, the status of season 4, deleted scenes, and a lot more.  In addition , we talked about Tremors (which she produced), the success of comic book movies, and I got updates on Gaiking and her USA Network pilot called Horizon.  She says it’s “set in the 1940’s and it’s about a woman whose husband disappears in the Pacific and she begins to wonder if it has something to do with an alien spaceship.”  Hit the jump for more.

It looks like Guillermo del Toro’s Pacific Rim may have opened up a can of gigantic robotic worms for mecha adaptations, because Gaiking, the live-action feature based on the animated 70s series, has now reportedly landed production partners. Gale Anne Hurd’s Valhalla Entertainment, Toei Animation and All Nippon Entertainment Works (ANEW) are teaming up to develop the property. Gaiking centers on a former baseball star who pilots the titular super robot against a host of alien enemies known as the Dark Horror Army.

While Transformers certainly showed studios that giant fighting robot movies can be lucrative, I’m hoping to see an uptick in quality of future mecha movies that are sure to be greenlit going forward. Bring me Robotech, Gundam, Voltron, RahXephon, Escaflowne and more. I, for one, welcome our robot overlords! Hit the jump for the full press release on Gaiking, along with the film’s first image and a teaser trailer of test footage that shows the mecha in motion!

Tonight, the third season of The Walking Dead premieres.  The show seems poised to make it to the next level with fan-favorite storylines from the books finally being used for the TV series.  More importantly, the show now seems ready for these storylines by becoming a popular television series in its own right rather than coasting on name recognition and being the only zombie-horror show on television.  At yesterday’s New York Comic-Con panel for the show, it was all about the fans and letting them pick the brains of the cast and creators before the walkers come shambling back into our homes.

Hit the jump for my panel recap of The Walking Dead, and click here for all of our New York Comic-Con coverage.

AMC is adding aliens to their collection of meth dealers, zombies and ad men with a new series, Area 51.  With Breaking Bad and Mad Men approaching the end of their runs, the network is keen to develop Annie Jacobsen’s best-selling book about the secretive military installation.  The book features a series of interviews with former servicemen employed on the base and examines the myths surrounding the classified zone.  The Walking Dead executive producer Gale Anne Hurd is set as the EP on Area 51, which will be written by The Good Wife’s Todd E. Kessler; Jacobsen will also co-produce.  Hit the jump for more declassified details on Area 51.

Though in previous years TV panels were relegated to Sunday in Hall H at Comic-Con, this year the television shows invaded the 6,000 seater on Friday in a big way.  One of the most anticipated panels was for AMC’s The Walking Dead, and Nerdist’s Chris Hardwick hilariously moderated the panel packed with the series’ stars as well as creator Robert Kirkman and showrunner Glen Mazzara.  Hit the jump to read my full recap.

We’re just 20 days away from the biggest pop culture convention of the year with Comic-Con 2012 coming next month, and slowly but surely studios and TV networks are firming up their rosters of films and series that will take San Diego by storm. This week it’s AMC announcing their line-up of panels for the convention, and the trio of programs hitting the Con is no surprise.

The Walking Dead will make a triumphant return to the convention with an hour-long panel in Hall H moderated by Talking Dead host Chris Hardwick and including special guests like cast members Andrew Lincoln, Sarah Wayne Callies, Laurie Holden, Norman Reedus, Steven Yeun, Lauren Cohan, Denai Guerrero and David Morrisey along with Executive Producer and Showrunner Glen Mazzara, Executive Producer Gale Anne Hurd, Executive Producer Robert Kirkman and Co-Executive Producer and Special Effects Make-up Supervisor Greg Nicotero.  But that’s not all. Hit the jump for more.

Summer is only just kicking off, but there’s plenty of viewers who already can’t wait for the fall, if only for the third season of The Walking Dead to premiere on AMC. Thankfully, though there’s months until we see the premiere, AMC is teasing viewers with a behind-the-scenes featurette of the first episode of the third season, already in production. Words like dark, ominous, harder, faster are all tossed around by cast members like Andrew Lincoln and Norman Reedus. There’s also hints and mentions of new characters we’ve already heard about including David Morrissey as The Governor and Danai Gurira as Michionne . There will be a great link behind the camera from the second season finale to the third season premiere as Ernest R. Dickerson is at the helm of both. Anyway, I’ll let the featurette talk about the rest after the jump.

The producer has already found success with the AMC drama The Walking Dead, and the period drama Port Royal is already on the way, but Gale Anne Hurd has lined up yet another TV endeavor. A press release from New Franchise Media Inc. has announced development of a TV series adaptation of British author Jeffrey Archer’s novel The Eleventh Commandment. The novel follows the most deadly CIA assassin Connor Fitzgerald, a man who keeps the details of his dangerous career from his own family. However, as luck would have it, with only a few days to go before retirement, the Director of the CIA is suddenly helbent on making Connor the fall guy for a phony assassination on a Russian presidential candidate that could inadvertently trigger World War III. The title of the series comes from just one of the books, but there’s a whole series of novels featuring Fitzgerald, so there’s plenty of source material for a TV series. You can find both a synopsis of The Eleventh Commandment and the full press release after the jump.

After their wildly successful first season, the cast and crew of The Walking Dead shambled into Ballroom 20 at Comic Con to thank the fans for their support and share some info about the upcoming season. First to arrive was the creative team of series creator/writer/director/executive producer Frank Darabont, executive producers Gale Anne Hurd and Robert Kirkman (creator/writer of The Walking Dead comic book series) and makeup artist and consulting producer, Greg Nicotero. Next came the principal cast, including Andrew Lincoln, Jon Bernthal, Sarah Wayne Callies, Laurie Holden, Norman Reedus, Steven Yeun and Jeffrey DeMunn. Hit the jump to see what cast and crew have in store for fans in season 2, plus a new trailer.

Interviewers were buzzing with energy at the pressroom for The Walking Dead, eager to get some intel on AMC’s apocalyptic-zombie show whose second season returns October 16^th.  It appears there is a genuine market for the otherworldly on TV, and AMC has put its own mark on the genre with its penchant for great storytelling. Here, I talk with cast members Laurie Holden (Andrea) and Norman Reedus (Daryl) as well as legendary sci-fi producer Gale Anne Hurd about the new season. In it, they discuss the production of shooting the highway scenes, what sort of romance might be in store, as well as their weapons of choice should they ever find themselves in the zombie-world they portray. Find the full transcript after the jump.

CBS Films has acquired a horror script entitled Hellfest from William Penick and Chris Sey. The screenplay is set in a Halloween theme park and features a costumed killer who begins killing patrons while unsuspecting, non-murdered customers assume it’s part of the show (silly customers). Per Heat Vision, The Walking Dead executive producer Gale Anne Hurd will produce Hellfest under her Valhalla Entertainment label. Penick and Sey developed their script based upon an original concept from Valhalla’s Ben Roberts who will executive produce the film. The co-scribes previously penned Secrets in the Walls, a television horror title that aired on Lifetime.

It’s that time of the week again: a time when I completely overlook the plethora of coverage we’ve provided our readers with in the preceding week, all in the name of bringing you the best stories we have to offer. In this week’s “Top 5″ installment you’ll find all kinds of premium content such as Michael Caine’s potential The Dark Knight Rises spoiler, our set visit coverage of The Muppets, the first images from Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit, producer Dean Devlin talking about potential sequels for Independence Day and Stargate, and our exclusive interview with Frank Darabont and producer Gale Anne Hurd regarding AMC’s The Walking Dead.

Hit the jump to find brief recaps and links to each.

“There’s no such thing as too big an axe. That’s the philosophy of the show, I’ve realized. There’s no such thing as too big an axe!”

This is how Academy Award-winner Frank Darabont describes his Saturn Award winning cable series, The Walking Dead, which will enter its’ sophomore season this fall on AMC.

Darabont and producer Gale Anne Hurd were on hand at the 37^th annual Saturn Awards Thursday night and after accepting their award for Best Television Presentation, the duo gave us a few minutes of their time to discuss the show’s second season, including details on Michonne, which Darabont says is coming in the third season.  We also discuss films from the whole of Darabont’s career, debunk Nikki Finki’s rumor mill, get an peek into how killing a seven-year old became a mission statement for the show and more.  Hit the jump for 10 key quotes and the full audio interview.

Today FX Productions announced an all-new project in collaborations with The Town producer Graham King’s GK-TV and The Walking Dead producer Gale Anne Hurd’s Valhalla Entertainment for a new one-hour drama series called Port Royal. Set in the late 17^th century on the island of Jamaica, the series will chronicle the namesake port’s notorious rise as the “richest and wickedest city” in the new world, and as a self-governing safe haven for cutthroat pirates, corrupt politicians, and ruthless merchants. Hurd says, “I’ve long been a fan of FX’s original programming, and I’m thrilled Port Royal has found a home with them. I’m looking forward to working with FX to make the show I’ve envisioned, and one that fits in perfectly with their incredible slate.” No cast, writers and directors have been announced yet, but the concept sounds like it cold be FX’s version of Boardwalk Empire.

Home Premiere, a Premium VOD service backed by four major studios, is set to launch tomorrow on DirecTV.  The service would charge consumers $30 to watch movies only sixty days after they first hit theaters.  Theaters, fearing that their revenues will be drastically cut, have responded with threats that range from believable to ridiculous.  Now 23 directors and producers, including James Cameron, Michael Bay, Kathryn Bigelow, Guillermo del Toro, Peter Jackson, Michael Mann, and Gore Verbinski have released an open letter siding with the theaters.

In the letter, the signers make the point that just because Premium VOD launches at $30, it doesn’t mean it will stay there and it could conceivably drop to $10 within a few year.  Hit the jump for the full letter.