Movies
Darabont Steps Down As ‘Walking Dead’ Showrunner
Apparently, the question we should have asked Frank Darabont during the roundtables for The Walking Dead at last weekend’s Comic Con is “Are you planning to stay with the show for the entire season?” Because today, per Deadline, Darabont reportedly stepped down as showrunner for the hit AMC show, and it is unknown if he will even remain on-board in any capacity as of this writing.
It was well publicized here on Bloody back in May that there were major issues with the writing staff in between the two seasons, and according to Deadline, Darabont never quite settled into the daily grind of TV after working in features for so long, so perhaps this isn’t as big of a surprise as we think. Hopefully we’ll learn more in the next few days, but I tell you, if this was something that was known to the cast and crew present at SDCC, they ALL deserve acting nominations, and Darabont himself might want to look into acting, as there was no indication (to me) that this sort of major drama was unfolding. Whatever the outcome, the show is still on track to have its season premiere on October 16th. Check out the awesome trailer below, and keep an eye here for some interviews from SDCC!
The trailer for Ti West’s upcoming adaptation of A Christmas Carol raised a lot of eyebrows when it dropped earlier this week. While plenty of folks initially dismissed Ebenezer as a derivative project meant to cash in on the recent wave of unnecessary prequels that expand the backstory of beloved characters (such as 2023’s Wonka), Charles Dickens’ original novel already made a point of exploring Ebenezer Scrooge’s origins in detail – meaning that this new film is likely just a particularly faithful adaptation of the source material under a different name.
Couple that with the fact that the movie is being helmed by a genuine horror auteur and I think it’s safe to say that the latest iteration of the first modern ghost story is in good hands.
That being said, one detail that immediately jumped out at me during the brief teaser (other than a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it nod to Johnny Depp’s iconic bedroom death scene from the original A Nightmare on Elm Street) is the fact that many of Ebenezer’s ghosts appear to have been directly lifted from the iconic John Leech illustrations that accompanied the first edition of Dickens’ novel.
Here are a couple of stills from the trailer compared to the original artwork:
The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come in ‘Ebenezer’ and ‘A Christmas Carol’
The Phantoms in ‘A Christmas Carol’ and ‘Ebenezer’
Marley’s Ghost in ‘Ebenezer’ and ‘A Christmas Carol’
Mainly working with old-school wood and steel engravings that would later be transferred to print, Leech was instrumental in crafting the iconic look of history’s most influential phantoms – especially since Dickens is said to have been deeply involved with the creation of these so-called “comic illustrations.”
And since the novel is commonly said to have popularized spiritualism in Victorian England, much of the ghostly iconography that we still see in genre media to this very day (including some of Ti West’s previous films) can be traced back to the author’s partnership with Leech.
Ebenezer won’t be the first A Christmas Carol adaptation to borrow heavily from these designs, but I can appreciate how Ti West is incorporating an important part of horror history into his latest film.
Ebenezer will be available in theaters starting November 13.
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