Darabont Clears Up ‘The Walking Dead’ Writer Debacle

Late last year, Frank Darabont made headlines by giving the axe to his writing staff on The The Walking Dead, the critically acclaimed AMC show that took viewers by surprise and became a ratings juggernaut. It was also rumored that he would be assigning writing duties to freelancers, though that turned out not to be the case.

In a recent interview with Deadline, Darabont finally shed some light on the situation, which he said was “all pretty overblown.

It left the impression that I walked in one day and murdered 12 people. Would you like to know how many writers we were talking about? Two. My thought had been that they’d under-delivered, and a change was necessary. I had to do too much of it by myself last year, and that was only six episodes. This season, it’s 13 and we’ve hired a fantastic writing staff. We hired Glen Mazzara as our Number Two in the room. We consider him our head writer and he’s just a fantastic asset. We’ve also got three other staff writers in Scott Gimple, Evan Reilly from Rescue Me, and Angela Kang. Plus Executive Producer Robert Kirkman, who wrote the original comic book, is also writing for us.

He also chatted about the direction his new writing staff would be talking, saying “It’s fair to say that the first six episodes were teeing up a lot of conflicts that will be more fully explored in our second season. We find a growing conflict with our two main guys, Rick [Andrew Lincoln] and Shane [Jon Bernthal]. We’re really excited about putting all of the characters on a chessboard and seeing how wonderfully and effectively we can toss conflict into the game.

Get ready for the new season in October; it’s closer than you think.
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Free Screening of ‘Priest’ In Orlando

Scott Stewart’s adaptation of the popular manga Priest is coming to theatres next Friday and if you live in the Orlando area, B-D has got your chance to check it out early! We’ve been given 125 passes (good for 2 people each) to an advanced screening of the film at AMC Universal (6000 Universal Blvd.) at 7:30 PM on Thursday, May 12. To win, all you have to do is email your name to [email protected]. Passes will be distributed via email on a first come, first served basis.
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Is There A Film Left To Watch After All These ‘Priest’ Clips?

With all the clips released for Priest over the last few weeks, I don’t expect anything to be left to my imagination by the time I see it. Still, I’m curious to see whether Screen Gems is putting this out during the summer because a) they think it’s good and have faith in it or b) it’s a glorious train wreck they think audiences might eat up during Hollywood’s official “turn your brain off” season.

The new clip features Paul Bettany and Cam Gigandet fighting off newborn vampires. There’s a severe lack of Karl Urban in the film’s marketing, which strikes me as odd considering he’s probably the most marketable name in the cast. Screen Gems, if we’re going to be inundated with more clips, can I please see the future Judge Dredd in action? Is that too much to ask?

Priest – hitting theatres on May 13 – is set in an alternate world ravaged by centuries of war between man and vampires. The story revolves around a legendary Warrior Priest (Paul Bettany) from the last Vampire War who now lives in obscurity among the other downtrodden human inhabitants in walled-in dystopian cities ruled by the Church. When his niece (Lily Collins) is abducted by a murderous pack of vampires, Priest breaks his sacred vows to venture out on an obsessive quest to find her before they turn her into one of them. He is joined on his crusade by his niece’s boyfriend (Cam Gigandet), a trigger-fingered young wasteland sheriff, and a former Warrior Priestess (Maggie Q) who possesses otherworldly fighting skills.


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See Paul Bettany And His Killer Crucifixes In New ‘Priest’ Clip

The closer we get to Priest‘s release date, the more interested in it I become. I’m absolutely fascinated with Screen Gems putting a dark, genre-based action film out during the summer when they’ve traditionally released them in the early Fall and Winter months (maybe it’s not bad?), and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think some of the clips were at least “visually stimulating”. But the thing that piques my interest the most is that there’s an animated opening sequence done by Genndy Tartakovsky(!).

Screen Gems released a brand new clip today which, much like last week’s, shows us the frantic pace of the film’s action scenes. Paul Bettany killing vampire-like creatures with tiny crucifix daggers? Sure, why not.

Priest is set in an alternate world — one ravaged by centuries of war between man and vampires. The story revolves around a legendary Warrior Priest (Paul Bettany) from the last Vampire War who now lives in obscurity among the other downtrodden human inhabitants in walled-in dystopian cities ruled by the Church. When his niece (Lily Collins) is abducted by a murderous pack of vampires, Priest breaks his sacred vows to venture out on an obsessive quest to find her before they turn her into one of them. He is joined on his crusade by his niece’s boyfriend (Cam Gigandet), a trigger-fingered young wasteland sheriff, and a former Warrior Priestess (Maggie Q) who possesses otherworldly fighting skills.


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Left 4 Dead: The Sacrifice DLC Review

Left 4 Dead fans rejoice! The long awaited dual compatible DLC for Left 4 Dead and its sequel went live Tuesday for the PC and Mac, and after a brief delay became available for all the hungry xbox 360 gamers out there.
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Review: SUPERNATURAL BEGINNINGS END #1

My beginnings of watching the CW’s cult hit “SUPERNATURAL” is very bittersweet, but since Wildstorms’ newest arc in the comic book spinoff is tagged with ‘Beginnings End’ I figure now would be a good time to shamelessly tell the story. I was at home sick for 3 days with a particularly nasty case of the flu (this was back before it was being tagged with ‘bird’, ‘swine’, or any other animal names. If it had to have one though let’s go with the ‘moose’ flu) and I was on my 3rd day of sleeping in. I was in the middle of a very shocking episode of Maury when an ad for the pilot episode came on. I recognized Ackles from the campy, but entertaining ‘DEVOUR’, and so I figured “why not?”. Little did I know that that one 30 second TV spot would start a 5 year obsession with one of, in my humble opinion, TVs best chiller series ever.

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Review: 28 Days Later #5

As the 5th, and subsequently, final issue of the first act of BOOM’s ’28 DAYS LATER’ came to a close I found myself wondering: how dumb would you have to be to take a flight into zombie infested England with nothing but a camera and your shell-shocked buddy in tow? Alas, this is where we find ourselves as the arc draws to a close. READ MORE

Preview: Strange #3

In stores January 13 is Marvel’s “Strange” issue #3.

“Stephen Strange and his new apprentice travel not to the Ruins of Raggador or the Dread Dimension of Dormammu…but to a small Southern town conducting a bizarre ritual of its own, one that threatens the life of every young girl in the state! Plus: more on the secrets that Stephen himself is hiding from his student!”

COVER BY: Tomm Coker
WRITER: Mark Waid
PENCILS: Emma Rios
INKS: Array
COLORED BY: Christina Strain

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‘Umbrella Academy Dallas’; My Pick For Best Series of 2009

As I sat at the computer looking back at the year in comics, horror particularly, I came to the realization that there had been so many great stories told in 2009. So many great story tellers and their equally talented artists had lent their talents to titles such as “The Walking Dead,” “Freddy VS Jason VS Ash,” “Locke & Key,” “Deadworld,” ect…that it was really a mixed bag. But even with such titles floating about in my imagination my pick for story of the year had been made months before when I picked up the final issue of the 6 part mini-series. READ MORE

Preview: Hack/Slash #29

If you’re Time Seeley & company how do you follow up an issue where Cassie and Vlad make sushi out of Mary Shelley and Chtulhu’s love child? What about sidekicks, a murder mystery, and Samhain? Find the answers to these and other burning questions beyond the break. (Note-lotion not included)

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Videogame Comic Mondays – Wolfenstein Motion Comic

Dead Pixels Editor and all around rad dude, Burnthebluesky, just sent me the last motion comic for Wolfenstein. The game came out last week and it seems to be pretty decent. Motion comics are becoming pretty popular…watch the video below and learn why.
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Free Comic! Infamous Electrocutes the Web…For Free

Recently the video game Infamous was released. Infamous tells the story of Cole McGrath, a survivor of a bomb blast but then finds out he has come out of it with electrical powers. Now does Cole use his powers and save his friends/city or does he just destroy it all? The free comic that is available online tells the prequel to the story and fills in some of the cracks the game had. Who doesn’t like free?!?
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28 Days Later Comic Out This July

Just a friendly reminder to go to your local comic shop this July to pick up the first issue of 28 Days Later. The series is supposed to connect the two movies, 28 days and weeks later. I’m for one am psyched…who’s with me? More info after the break…
 28 Days Later Comic Out This July
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Art of Hack/Slash out this August!!!

I noticed an ad in the new issue of Hack/Slash. In August, Devils Due Publishing is releasing the “Art of Hack/Slash,” a 48 page art book celebrating the series with a cover by Tim Seeley. I hope the brunt of the book is the all the movie poster like covers, apparently the quality of the book/paper will be suitable for framing…time will tell. Are you gonna be picking this up?
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Aliens #1 Quick Look at Dark Horse’s Revivial

The biggest new release this week was Dark Horse’s Aliens #1. If you purchase the comic this week, you get another free Aliens/Predator comic and a really sweet double sided poster of Aliens/Predator. Luckily the comic had absolutely no predators in it. But did it actually show any Aliens? Read on after the break for more info….
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Review of Resident Evil 5 Prequel Comic: Resident Evil 5

The first issue of the new Resident Evil series of comics came out weeks ago, I tried to get it then but the comic book store were already sold out. I was pretty shocked at that since I came really early on a Wednesday, so I had to patiently wait and special order it. My copy finally came in last week and I dove right in and the results were…well…interesting. My full review after the break.
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Out This Week: Resident Evil #1

So the time is almost over, Resident Evil 5 is days away from being released. I could not think a better way to count down those days by getting issue one of the new Resident Evil comic. The comic bridges the story of Chris Redfield to the new game, you can find out who the BSAA are, and why they are in Africa. I’m picking this one up tomorrow and I suggest you do the same. More info after the break…
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