Last month is was finally announced that the brilliant Frank Darabont (“The Shawshank Redemption,” “The Mist”) would be sinking his teeth into “The Walking Dead,” Robert Kirkman’s long-running comic book series about life after the zombie invasion. It was revealed that Kirkman’s tale would unfold on television thanks to AMC. Immediately some concern flared up that there wouldn’t be any gore, but Kirkman believes otherwise. Check out a recent interview with him from MTV.
“When I heard that Darabont was interested in doing it a long, long time ago, I was just ecstatic. For me, “The Walking Dead” is not necessarily a horror thing. It’s not all about the shocks. It’s about characters and all of that dramatic nonsense. And Darabont does that better than anybody,” Kirkman tells MTV. “I’m excited that there is a television show, and I’m excited that Darabont is involved–and one of the big reasons for that is that I trust him. I don’t need to look over his shoulder.” He continues, “Frank understands the material 100 percent. It’s always been shocking to me, doing Hollywood meetings over the years, just how easy it is for someone to come in to the meeting and say something like, “We want the zombies to have super powers.” Knowing that, I’m really excited about it, because from my discussions with Frank, he likes the right things about “Walking Dead.””

Answering many questions from rabid fans, Kirkman reveals that he’d like Drabont to bring his own elements to the story. “I’ve told Frank flat-out that I do not want him to follow the comic to the detriment of the show. I encourage him to veer off if he has something that will work really well on TV that wouldn’t work in a comic. I don’t want people who enjoy the comic to be watching the TV show and going, “Oh, this is leading to that one thing I already know about from the comic.”

More importantly is the blood and guts of the series, which Kirman feels will still have an impact in the TV series. “I had no concerns about that whatsoever, because one of the concerns I have about zombie fiction is when they rely too much on the shocking gore aspects. That’s not really the point of “Walking Dead,” so to a certain extant, I think it will work better at AMC–because it forces people not to rely on that stuff.”

Click the link below for the entire interview.