All Things:AMC television

Glen Mazarra's Walking Dead departure might be all about Kirkman | Blastr

We reported last month that showrunner Glen Mazzara had left under more or less amicable circumstances from AMC's hit The Walking Dead. But could the real reason have everything to do with a certain Mr. Robert Kirkman?

Producer on Sons of Anarchy Kurt Stutter certainly had some choice words on the subject of Mazarra's departure. To wit, he quite bluntly stated that AMC had sent him "a gift basket filled with ... broken promises and the marinated tongue used to lick Kirkman's ass."

Well!

Not terribly difficult to suss out the meaning behind that oh-so-veiled comment, is it? Folks, when you get sacked, it is often best for all parties involved to make it seem, to the public eye, as though the break was a clean one. That, however, does not mean you won't grump to your buddies. We imagine Mazarra did just that with Stutter, who, in turn, felt no obligation to hide his personal sentiment.

To Kirkman's credit, he took the high road on Twitter, publicly stating that Stutter "is brilliant and Sons is my favorite show on TV. Still, it's upsetting to see him ranting about things he knows nothing about."

But that doesn't solve the issue of two big-name showrunners being ousted from the Walking Dead bullpen. Is it all about Kirkman? Could be. He does have an enormous amount of creative control. Whether or not his skills as a comic writer extend to the medium of TV, however, remains in debate.

What's your gut? Is Kirkman behind Mazarra's departure? And who should take over?

seem to recall some wise soul around here thinking that Kirkman might have had more to do with this than they were saying...
 
and now more...

Get Blinded by New Walking Dead Poster; More on Glen Mazzara Exit | Horror Movie, DVD, & Book Reviews, News, Interviews at Dread Central

...more on the whole Glen Mazzara exiting as showrunner situation.

According to THR it turns out that instead of an agreed upon mutual split Mazzara may have been straight up fired. Says the site: “One source says Mazzara’s shortcomings in running the series during the most recent third season became “abundantly clear … especially for the second half of the season.” This source says production was shut down “several times” because of a "lack of material.”

Mazzara has yet to comment.
 
The train is starting to come off the tracks ... I hope they can prevent the derailment ...
 
open letter to AMC execs...this is how you do it right.

AMERICAN HORROR STORY Season 3 and IT’S ALWAYS SUNNY Season 10 News from FX’s John Landgraf | Collider

FX seems to have a great relationship with their showrunners. What is the secret to having a show that does well, and giving them the freedom that they want, to tell the story that they want?

JOHN LANDGRAF: I think maybe the most important thing that I or anybody at my company and any of my colleagues can do is establish a trusting, productive, collaborative relationship with creative people. I think that’s job one. And that can’t be a passive relationship because you have serious and difficult things to talk about with somebody who does a show on your air. You’re going to have bad moments, and you’re going to have fights and arguments. I don’t think I ever had any relationship with any showrunner, over time, with whom I didn’t have conflict.

That said, if you look at the more than a decade of history FX has had in this business, we’ve never fired a showrunner. We’ve actually only had one person who created a show ever leave a show as the showrunner, and that’s David Zuckerman, who created Wilfred and who is still an executive producer of the show, but voluntarily and, in fact, intentionally handed the show to his handpicked disciples, Reed [Agnew] and Eli [Jorn?]. That was his election, not ours.

So, we’re batting 1,000, in terms of retaining the creator of our shows, from the beginning to the very end of the shows, and I think that’s because these shows are very personal. They’re not shows that are plug-and-play, where you can pull out a showrunner and put in another showrunner. The dramas are like long-running novelistic narratives. They’re like 90-hour movies, and the author of the character and the author of the thematic material needs to complete the journey. I think many of you would agree that there have been a lot of really great shows, and some shows that have finished up really well. I think The Shield is right up there in the top five or the top ten, in terms of the best finishes. What would that show have been, if Shawn Ryan hadn’t been the guy that wrote the last season?
 
That second thing about mismanagement clearly sounds like AMC leaking stuff to muddy the waters.

These deceptive "Jedi mind tricks" are done in every business especially mine. We call it "look at the shiny object" in my workplace!
 
Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance Co-Writer Is New Walking Dead Showrunner - Bleeding Cool Comic Book, Movies and TV News and Rumors

The third show runner in the short life of AMC’s smash-hit zombie show has been named, and it’s to be Scott M. Gimple.

The Hollywood Reporter seemed to be the first to know of Gimple’s appointment. He’s been writing on the show since the second season and will take charge for the fourth. In theory, he may even remain for the fifth, but, eh, it’s hard to predict what will happen on a merry-go-round when it’s spinning this fast.

Gimple’s one feature film credit is Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance, where he shares credit – if that’s the word – with Seth Hoffman and David Goyer. Who knows what each of them contributed to the screenplay, or how it was effected by the kinetic, skate-wearing, go-juice fuelled process of Neveldineandtayloring that brought it to the screen?

Amongst Gimple’s TV work are episodes of Flash Forward, Life, the cruelly aborted Drive and a few saturday morning-style toons. He’s written episode 15 of this series, titled This Sorrowful Life and directed by Greg Nicotero.
 
'The Walking Dead': Glen Mazzara on what's next in season 3 | Inside TV | EW.com

EW: Obviously fans of The Walking Dead comic were excited to see Tyrese introduced in the last episode. What’s going to happen when Rick returns and finds him there at the prison?
MAZZARA: Tyrese is not necessarily a good guy who simply joins Rick’s team and fights against the Governor. He’s a wild card. He’s an interesting character and his priority is keeping his own group safe. I think viewers will be surprised by the twists and turns in the Tyrese story.

EW: You brought in all this iconic stuff in the first half of the season: the prison, Woodbury, Michonne, the Governor, Penny, Tyrese. Anything or anyone else from the comic that we can anticipate seeing in the back half of the season?
MAZZARA: Our comic book fans will still be excited and delighted to see how the story unfolds and how we tell the story. We do have a lot of new surprising material. There’s still a major character to appear in the back half, which is very exciting. As always we take the comic book as inspiration and tell our own story. I’m happy to say the exciting pace and the chances we take with the storytelling and the twists and turns that people enjoyed so much in the first half are all still there in the second half. It’s one connected, fluid season — we just took a little break with for the holidays.
 
Limited Edition Home Video Packaging Revealed for The Walking Dead Season 3 | Horror Movie, DVD, & Book Reviews, News, Interviews at Dread Central

walkingdeadseason3dvd1_zps61406efb.jpg


I did not feel the urge to buy the screwdriver zombie pack of s2...but this one has lights!!!!!
 
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