The Walking Dead: Comic-Con Trailer, Photos, Panel & Interview Highlights

The Walking Dead Comic Con Highlights

With Comic-Con well underway, we thought we bring you some highlights from one of the show’s we’ll be following closely this fall – The Walking Dead. Below the jump you’ll find the Walking Dead trailer played at Comic-Con, photos from the Walking Dead Comic-Con booth, quotes from the panel, and video interviews with Jon Bernthal, who plays Shane Walsh, and Andrew Lincoln, who plays Rick Grimes in the series.

Spoilers follow!

Here’s the Walking Dead Trailer that was aired at Comic-Con:

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The quality of the video (that’s the youtube video) wasn’t the greatest but even so I liked, no LOVED, what I saw! The realistic tone, large cast and potential for narrative flexibility are just some of the tantalizing take-aways. I also enjoyed the music that they used for the trailer – I hope the actual in-show soundtrack is as mesmeric. Note: ‘Battlestar’ composer Bear McCreary will be doing the score.

Here’s one of the more creative (and creepy!) Comic-Con booths that you’re likely to see at this year’s convention:

Thanks to Hilary Rothing at UGO for the snaps.

Here are some of the stand-out quotes and comments from the Walking Dead panel, courtesy of Newsarama:

Gale Ann Hurd opened up the panel by stating, “The Walking Dead–like most of you–found us.” She added, “Robert has created one of the seminal continuing series in modern comics. It’s also up for the Eisner for “Best Continuing Series”.
Kirkman spoke, “I never planned on The Walking Dead becoming this big. There are so many excellent people involved. To see AMC commit to doing such a great job of getting a zombie television show right is fantastic and bizarre. I feel blessed.”
The panel spoke about the initial 6 episodes of the series and how the length of the episodes will fall in line with the filming process and how that would compare to the initial story arc in the comic series. Hurd noted that the filming seems so large but it’s deceptive. She noted that the process changes the comic somewhat in that the characters are explored more through television.
Darabont spoke about the adaptation process, “As long as we don’t stray too far, Robert’s ideas are great–so why not use every other idea he’s come up with. There will be things that readers will not expect in the show but they will recognize things that are familiar too.” Kirkman added, “I don’t want anyone who reads the comic to say ‘I know what’s going to happen next!’; I want the two to exist separately.”
The clip shows the opening sequence that is very similar to Rick’s shooting and his struggle in the hospital only to find the town abandoned and zombies all about.
The audience erupted into applause and a standing ovation as the clip ended.
Darabont talked about the casting process, “We beg pleaded and grovelled for the best possible actors we could find. I had worked with several folks before and I tried to bring in the best possible folks for each of these roles. We also had to go through the regular casting process somewhat. I’m in awe of this cast; we’re very lucky to have this amazing cast of people.”
Gale Ann Hurd announced two new cast members, Michael Rooker and Norman Reedus.
Someone asked, “How far can you push the show?” to which Kirkman laughed, “This show is going to be chock full of dead children!”

You can read the full transcript here.

Buzz Focus grabbed a few minutes with Jon Bernthal who talks about the “honor” of playing Shane Walsh, the connectivity of the storyline, and the family unit that has developed around the show:

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Finally (for now), io9 caught up with Andrew Lincoln to find out how far he is willing to go for Rick Grimes. Check out the video interview and excerpt:

You guys don’t stay 100% to the comic but there are certain pivotal things that have to happen to your character that you know going in. Horrible, terrible things. Going into that how do you prepare for [this part], knowing part of you could be augmented for the rest of your character’s life?
AMC are brilliant because they give space to character. And that’s one of the great things that I’ve really liked in the four episodes we’ve shot. It’s that they really care about that evolution. The great thing I loved about when I read the novel is it It feels like he’s eroding. This great sort of decent honorable guy, by circumstance gets eroded. And there’s nothing more exciting for an actor to play such high stakes scenes. Such life or death scenes in such a heightened world. It’s a dream come true this is what we trained to do.

More here.

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Tagged as: comic con, Spoilers, The Walking Dead