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AMC announced yesterday it has greenlit The Walking Dead as a six-episode series based on the comic book series written by Robert Kirkman and published by Image Comics. Kirkman serves as an executive producer on the project and three-time Academy Award-nominee Frank Darabont (The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile) serves as writer, director and executive producer. Gale Anne Hurd (The Terminator, Aliens, Armageddon, The Incredible Hulk), chairman of Valhalla Motion Pictures, serves as Executive Producer. David Alpert from Circle of Confusion serves as Executive Producer. Today's announcement also includes the addition of Charles "Chic" Eglee (Dexter, The Shield, Dark Angel) as Executive Producer, and actor Jon Bernthal (The Pacific, The Ghost Writer) who will portray the character Shane.

The Walking Dead begins production in June in Atlanta with six, one-hour episodes for season one. The series is set to premiere in October 2010 during AMC's Fearfest, the network's annual blockbuster marathon of thriller and horror films. AMC Fearfest (formerly known as MonsterFest) is celebrating its 14th year by airing 14 consecutive days of themed programming with more than 50 films. AMC announced development of The Walking Dead in August 2009 and announced the pilot in January of this year.

Continue reading "AMC Greenlights Six Episodes of The Walking Dead Set to Premiere in October 2010" »

The zombies are upon us! Well, not quite yet, but the buzz online for AMC's upcoming Walking Dead is heating up. Take a peak at what people are saying about the comic-book adaptation.

• A reviewer of the pilot script told MTV.com that Walking Dead could "do for horror what Battlestar Galactica did for science fiction." High praise!

• The horror hub Bloodydigusting.com reports that the pilot will begin shooting on May 15 and thinks Robert Kirkman's is "one of the greatest comics of all time."

• Other fan sites are eager, as well. Comic Book Resources cites The Walking Dead as a "prime example of a 'would work better as a TV show than as a movie' wish-list item."

• Over at DreadCentral.com, they can barely contain their excitement.

• Finally, is the series more evidence that zombies really are the new vampires?

Ending months of speculation, AMC has ordered a pilot for Robert Kirkman's The Walking Dead. Recounting the months and years that follow a zombie apocalypse, The Walking Dead has run in comic book form since 2003, and ranked as the number 3, 4, and 5 bestselling graphic novels of 2009 according to Diamond Comic Distributors.

The comic focuses on a group of survivors, led by police officer Rick Grimes, who travel in search of a safe, secure home. The story goes on to explore the challenges of life in a world overrun by zombies, and how sometimes interpersonal conflicts present greater danger than the zombies themselves.

The television version will be executive produced by series creator Robert Kirkman, Valhalla Motion Pictures chairman Gale Anne Hurd (The Terminator, Aliens, Armageddon, The Incredible Hulk), and three-time Academy Award nominee Frank Darabont (The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile) who has also signed on to write and direct. David Alpert from Circle of Confusion has also signed on as an executive producer.

In addition, AMC has greenlit a pilot for The Killing, an adaptation of the Danish series. Forbrydelsen. These are the fourth and fifth pilot orders for AMC; the first three being Mad Men, Breaking Bad, and Rubicon.

Television is due for an onslaught of zombies as AMC recently secured the rights to Robert Kirkman's comic book series The Walking Dead. It gets better, folks: Three-time Oscar Nominee Frank Darabont (The Mist, The Fly 2) has signed on as writer-director for the miniseries as has Gale Anne Hurd (The Terminator, Aliens, Armageddon) for executive producer. EW.com calls the pairing of The Walking Dead and AMC the "best-idea-ever of the day" and goes on to deem The Walking Dead the best piece of zombie of the decade. Kirkman's series chronicles the post-apocalyptic fates of ordinary people from the greater Atlanta area as they fight off the living dead. The story center on Rick Grimes, a small-town police officer who's shot in the line of duty then awakens from a coma to find himself in a bloody new world of monsters.

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Life is full of bad horror... you have news feeds for that.

Your guide to good horror is no farther away than your iPhone and iPod Touch: AMC has recently launched an exclusive, free app that will hook you up with all the goodies our Horror Hacker site has to offer like our in-the-know blog columns crammed with unique insights into the world of serial killers, classic monsters, demonic possession and angelic-looking bad seeds. It will also ensure that you'll never miss another scary movie on AMC, thanks to your now-mobile broadcast schedule. What's on this week's Fear Friday? Well, let me check my iPhone...

And there's more: You'll also get AMC's SciFi Scanner and Future of Classic movie blogs, plus exclusive video for AMC originals Breaking Bad, Mad Men and AMC News. In other words, everything but Freddy Krueger crawling out of your screen. (You don't really want that, do you? Because it always ends in a scream.)

Download your free copy today.

Click here to view the app at the iTunes store.

If you're looking for the inside scoop on Halloween 2, you've just found it. Now head on over to the AMC News blog for a video interview with Wayne Toth, the lead makeup effects designer, and the man responsible for Michael Myers' new mask. Afterward, watch on-set interviews with Rob Zombie and actor Tyler Mane.

Read more here.

Starved for info on Rob Zombie's upcoming Halloween 2? You've come to the right place. Check out the AMC News blog for a video interview with Tyler Mane, the massive pro-wrestling actor who'll be playing Michael Myers. Afterwards, check out the on-set video interview with Rob Zombie conducted at the ungodly hour of 4AM.

Read more here.

Good news for lovers of all things old, exploitative, obscure, and shot on the way, way cheap! AMCtv.com is pleased to announce the launch of a new section dedicated to that most singular and under-appreciated of art forms, the B-movie. And it won't be just any fan-site: We'll be sharing a slew of movies hand-picked from the archives that you'll be able to watch from the comfort of your own home, free of charge. (Amen.)

Head on over to the site with over twenty movies to choose from, six of them horror flicks. Among them: War of the Colossal Beast (which inspired a 14-year-old John Carpenter to craft a sequel, Return of the Colossal Beasts, in 1962); the 1950 movie Corridors of Blood, in which Boris Karloff stars as a vapors-addicted doctor; and Del Tenney's drive-in classic The Horror of Party Beach. John Waters would be proud.