"The Walking Dead" Season 2 Updates

The craft services bill for the zombies is astronomical.

Kurt Sutter is bitching again and it isn't even his show!

 

I find this article from The Holywood Reporter to be extremely frustrating and troubling:

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/walking-dead-what-happened-fired-221449

 

AMC is making quite a profit so this is greed pure and simple. It's also bad management policy. They were clearly trying to become the next HBO and are now failing wildly.

 

It sounds as if AMC's executives are great at being entrepreneurs (getting/picking new ideas, getting those ideas started) but terrible at being administrators (long-term planning, the grind of actually dealing with talent/employees). It's a common problem in business, actually.

I'm sure many will think AMC's previous executive choices were luck (talent falling into their hands), but being an entrepreneur is a very different skill-set from being an administrator. It wouldn't surprise me if these guys really are great at picking new shows and getting them going. They just need to hire better people for everything that comes afterwards.

 

Also from that article is this.

If true, this Attack of the Bean Counters is the kind that has cluelessly killed many projects.

AMC's star could fall as fast as it rose.

 

Those suggestions aren't really all that terrible (especially if they're just on-the-cuff questions rather than a directives from above). There are certainly creative ways to spend a couple episodes in closed sets. Hell, these guys are trying to survive a zombie outbreak. It's perfectly reasonable to have them hiding in enclosed spaces occasionally or arguing with other survivors over how to best protect their hiding places.

Most SF/F shows depend upon having a few bottle episodes in order to save money for the big smash-em-up episodes. I get that they're trying to make every episode special, but bottle episodes can be special in the right hands (check out Babylon 5's "Intersections in Real Time" as an example).

Sure, it might have been excessive to put half the episodes indoors, but that's (hopefully) just a starting point for some discussions.

Edit: Also, I've read the comics, and there are certainly plot-lines that lend themselves to long-term (even indoor) sets. They could even plan ahead (assuming the script-writers can get ahead of the filming a bit) and have a few outdoor scenes in-the-can for the periods without out-door filming.

 

Most of Dawn Of The Dead took place indoors.

While I certainly agree that suit-and-tie interference in creative matters is a bad thing, and reflexively came down on the side of the producers, that is a pretty high budget for a cable TV show. Why is it that high? Because of all the location shooting? In any case, I don't think it's really unreasonable for them to want to keep the budget under three million dollars when other shows manage on half that.

 

I would have thought they'd just write it off under "extras".

 

I can't imagine it's just location shooting. As the HR article points out, the show has been receiving a 30% tax credit for shooting in Georgia - money that, with season two, AMC has decided to hold onto rather than use for the show.

 

Location shooting can be pretty expensive. Back in the day, NBC had a series called Earth 2. Putting aside complaints of quality, it was doing average in the ratings. But it's budget was high, because most of the series was shot outdoors.

When decision time came, it didn't make the cut due to its expense.

 

If they follow the storyline of the comic, shooting half the time insides shouldn't be that big of a deal anyway imo. I would guess the actors' salary is the bigger obstacle to keep the costs down.

 

It will, however, take some time to reach those points in the story. The next "main" location in season two isn't going to be of much use for such a purpose.

 

The creator of Sons of Anarchy weighs-in:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/...s-of-anarchy-matthew-weiner-amc_n_925201.html

 

http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2011/08/kurt_sutter_walking_dead.html

Fucking Mad Men ruins everything!

Looks like the next season of The Walking Dead is going to be trainwreck. You would think they would take care their show with the biggest ratings, but no. AMC fired the original show runner and cheaped out, something that doesn't happen to MOST shows until around season five. The half the show taking place indoors idea is so fucking lame.

 

Good thing I already think of Mad Men as an overrated bore-fest then.

 

Given that Walking Dead pulls in three times the ratings of Mad Men, you'd think AMC would have told them where to shove it.

 

But Mad Men has been pulling in the Emmy's and many other awards.

Somehow AMC must be figuring that some ratings points are worth more than others.

 

Or The Walking Dead can tell AMC where to shove it. I could see it doing very well elsewhere on basic or premium cable (but not SyFy!)

Conversely, who would put up with Mad Men? It wouldn't pull decent ratings anywhere but Showtime or HBO, and they have their own prestige productions underway. AMC should have played harder ball.

 

Unfortunately, they can't. AMC completely owns TWD, which isn't the case with Mad Men or Breaking Bad.

I wouldn't blame Mad Men for this mess. (And not only because MM is my favourite show on television) AMC' management clearly made a bunch of very bad decisions. And even after the budget cuts, they didn't have to fire Darabont.

 

the fault is with AMC for caving in to Mad Men's guys. Are we really blaming them for basically asking for, and getting a ludicrously high salary? It's up to AMC to say "No".