5 Steps To Success: The Walking Dead

5 Steps To Success: AMC's Adaptation of The Walking Dead

A feature I'll be busting out every once in a while here on NOTLB is “5 Steps To Success.” When a project is announced and has the potential to be very very good or very very bad, expect to see one of these guys. Months ago, AMC announced that they had brought on Frank Darabont (Shawshank Redemption, The Mist) to adapt Robert Kirkman's acclaimed graphic novel, The Walking Dead, into a television series. For those of you not in the know, The Walking Dead is a comic that sets out to show you what happens in a zombie movie after the credits roll. It tries to be a realistic look at living and coping during the zombie apocalypse. Here are five things that are necessary for this show to be a success.

Step One: Get a name actor to play Rick Grimes.

Why do you need a name actor to play the lead role? Because, simply put, horror doesn't have the greatest track record when it comes to television. True Blood and Dexter might be successes, but they're on HBO and Showtime. They can get away with whatever the hell they want to. The last horror themed show that comes to my mind (not on any of the pay channels) was Fear Itself, and nobody wants to see The Walking Dead go down the same road that Fear Itself did. It was a show that's quality ranged from pretty good to downright awful (I'm looking at you Darren Bousman). If Frank Darabont is able to get a talented and familiar face to play Rick Grimes, I think it would immediately lend some much needed credibility to the project. When the news first broke that The Walking Dead was being adapted into a television show, I thought the perfect guy for the job would be Thomas Jane. He had worked with Darabont on The Mist, but Jane's television show Hung on HBO is getting a second season, so he's off limits. I don't know who should get the part, but it will serve AMC well to get an established actor.

Step Two: AMC needs to give Frank Darabont space.

Here's your homework for tonight. Go read Stephen King's short story “The Mist”. Then go and watch Frank Darabont's adaptation of it. People who are apart of the “movies are never as good as the books” crowd, need to eat a little crow in this case. Darabont's vision completely blows King's out of the water in every single facet. Without going into spoilers, Darabont changed around key parts of the plot, cutting out an unnecessary romance and changing King's non-ending twinged with hope, to the most shocking and heartbreaking ending I've seen since I watched the original Night of the Living Dead. Darabont knows what needs to be done to tighten up the story behind The Walking Dead. If the suits at AMC just pay the bills and leave him be, I have every bit of confidence that he'll be able to make this a successful venture. Nothing good ever comes from businessmen trying to get involved on the creative side.

Step Three: Pace yourselves.

One of my biggest complaints with Kirkman's The Walking Dead is how all the storylines seem rushed. I read the comics in bunches of six in paperback form instead of in comic form, and maybe that accounts for why I feel some of this was rushed, but it just seemed like Kirkman was blowing through stories left and right. The Shane saga started and ended VERY quickly. And before it even ended, we just jumped weeks in advance until it was time to leave the camp they had set up prior to Rick's arrival. From there they just bounce around a lot from place to place, losing members of their camp in some places and picking up more members in other places. This is something that would not translate well to television. If I had it my way, the first season of The Walking Dead would take us from Rick getting shot (the beginning of the story) to them leaving the camp they set up outside Atlanta.

Step Four: Make it about the story, not the gore.

As I said above, it gets annoying in The Walking Dead when Kirkman jumps forward a bit in time to an action sequence. The missions statement for this comic was to provide us with a look at day to day life after zombies have overrun society. However, instead of focusing on the day to day, he skips forward to the action sequences and the gore on quite a few occasions. If people want to see an hour of nonstop gore every week, I'm sure all they'll have to do is put on one of them Sci Fi original movies. If this is going to work, they're going to have to expand on the story. It'll be the story that will attract the casual viewer, not so much the blood and guts. So instead of having Rick fight his way to their camp, then skipping forward to gun training, then skipping forward to leaving camp, maybe we should focus on what's happening during that time at camp. Thankfully Frank Darabont is a master storyteller who would relish in coming up with storylines for the time that Kirkman overlooked between events.

And finally, Step Five: Forget the Michonne character ever existed.

The reason why I stopped reading the comic. What the hell were you thinking Kirkman? You tell us how this is supposed to be as real of a zombie apocalypse as we've ever seen and then you go and bring in a chick wielding a katana, leading chained up zombies with her? They aren't pets. One false move and you're dead... but she's chaining them up and taking them on the road with her. What the hell is that shit? The entire character is obnoxious, not mysterious like I'm sure he was shooting for. Frank Darabont would be better off just forgetting this character ever existed.

And there you have it. The five key steps to making sure The Walking Dead is on our television sets, entertaining us for years to come.