That must have been a pretty good trailer. In spite of the fact that its pilot episode will not air until Halloween night (no need to check your calendars, it’s on a Sunday), AMC’s zombie adaptation The Walking Dead (based on Robert Kirkman’s ongoing comic series) has already been picked up for a second season. From Empire [via Fangoria], the follow-up to the show’s six-episode first season will begin filming in February 2011 and will consist of thirteen episodes.
For more on what The Walking Dead executive producer Frank Darabont (The Shawshank Redemption) has to say about the show’s second season, hit the jump.
From Comic Book Movie, Darabont claims that he would love to capture on film “some of the environmental elements from volume 2 of Kirkman’s epic comic,” saying:
"It would be great not just to get out of the heat (season one was shot in Atlanta), but to present a different idea to the audience visually and tonally by having it be winter. There’s some really cool stuff that Kirkman did, where they find the one zombie that’s frozen to the ground. I’d never seen that before and that’s really cool.”
Darabont also discussed his excitement for potentially introducing one of his favorite characters from the comic in season two:
“...Or when Michonne shows up – and boy, is she a character I can’t wait to get to – when she comes striding out of the wasteland like a Clint Eastwood f***ing spaghetti western character cross-melded with some samurai movie, like the Baby Cart character with the f***ing sword, and there’s just a little drift of snow in the air. I would love to put that on film." said Darabont.
While I wasn’t initially blown away by the footage shown at this year’s San Diego Comic-Con (personally, I thought it felt too similar to Danny Boyle's excellent 28 Days Later), I’ll attribute that to unattainably high expectations. Furthermore, given the great source material and the collective talent of those in charge of the adaptation, you can bet that I’ll be tuning into the 90-minute pilot this Halloween.
