‘Can You Take The Zombies Out?’ – NBC On Walking Dead

Back when The Walking Dead was still at the inception stage and it was being shopped to various networks, one prospective buyer was NBC.  But they had kind of a problem, the fact that there were zombies in the series.  Producer Gale Ann Hurd;

Via Variety: Before the show was picked up by AMC for domestic and Fox for international, its creator Frank Darabont presented the first version of the script to NBC, with whom he had an overall deal. According to Hurd, their response was, “Do there have to be zombies [in it].” NBC then asked Darabont if the show could be a procedural in which the two main protagonists would “solve a zombie crime of the week,” she said.

Despite the obvious importance of the zombies to the show, Hurd underscored the fact that the humans are at the center of the drama. She said people new to the show were surprised that “it’s not about the zombies it’s about the humans.” Hurd said that the focus for a serialized drama such as this was on the evolution of the characters. “What attracted me to [Robert Kirkman’s] comic-book series is that it is a story about characters on a journey into this new world, and constantly trying to figure out not only how to survive but what’s important to them, and some characters give up, some characters commit suicide, and they are constantly evolving, they are constantly meeting new characters; they have to determine friend or foe, and very quickly we realize that it is not the zombies you have to be afraid of, it’s the other humans,” she said.

Still, they’re not so far off.  The main series of The Walking Dead doesn’t have all that many zombies.  It’s just Officer Rick and his ultimate squad of badasses destroying a new human gang each season.  Romero would’ve taken that group down a peg or two…