‘The Walking Dead’ Creator Frank Darabont Testifies on AMC Controversy
Although "The Walking Dead" is perhaps the most watched and most loved show on television at the moment, the man who brought it to the small screen has revealed that, in the show's infancy, there were some distressing times on the set, especially dealing with cable network AMC.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, show creator Frank Darabont recently gave a deposition in a lawsuit pending against the network. He revealed some details about Season 2 that led to him being fired from the series.
Darabont recounted how "The Walking Dead" was filming in Georgia. At the time, the state had provided the network with tax credits that the show creator said the network pocketed. That was all the same to him initially. However, Darabont soon got a notice of budget cuts on each episode, which would substantially decrease the quality of the production he envisioned for the show.
Darabont said that when the cuts came in, Joel Stillerman, president of original programming and development for AMC, met with him in his office to discuss the issue. The show was already showing signs of its immense success to come, and Darabont could not understand why they would cut the budget on the episodes when the show was doing nothing but soaring in the ratings.
He added in the deposition that the show was growing in 120 countries, in some by as much as 1,000 percent. He said he told Stillerman, "We're hearing how successful the show is for you, you're telling us that this, this budget issue is not going to budge at all. And he said, 'The success of the show has no bearing on this discussion,' in a rather icy manner."
Darabont was later fired from the show for reasons that he said were fabricated. The official reason given was that he reportedly was not fulfilling his duties as showrunner for the series, which Darabont fervently denied. That firing also cut his earnings, as stated in his contract, and he said he lost tens of millions of dollars.
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