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Watch the World Premiere Trailer for #TWD Season 7, premiering Sunday, October 23 at 9|8c. https://t.co/GAHg8vpSh5

— The Walking Dead AMC (@WalkingDead_AMC) July 22, 2016

Watch the World Premiere Trailer for #TWD Season 7, premiering Sunday, October 23 at 9|8c. https://t.co/GAHg8vpSh5

New Post has been published on http://www.weirdlife.com/facts-probably-didnt-know-walking-dead/

Facts You Probably Didn’t Know About The Walking Dead

Days Gone By

The first episode of The Walking Dead was called ‘Days Gone By’ and aired Halloween 2010 to rave reviews. A lot of this critical acclaim can be attributed to Frank Darabont, who both wrote and directed the pilot.

For those of you who don’t know who he is, Darabont is the director behind some of the most popular Stephen King adaptations of all time, including The Mist, The Green Mile and The Shawshank Redemption. Darabont’s pedigree as a film maker led to him becoming the shows executive producer, but he left after only one season due to budget constraints that had been placed on the show.

Too Violent?

It’s hard to believe, but before AMC came on board to produce The Walking Dead, both NBC and HBO passed on the hit show. According to executive producer Greg Nicotero, both companies wanted to tone down the gore and violence, a condition that producer Gale Anne Hurd refused to accept.

It seems strange that a studio like HBO would want to make a ‘tame’ zombie show, especially given their track record of producing violent programming like True Blood and Game of Thrones, but it all worked out in the end for the fans, as AMC have worked hard to stay true to the spirit of the original source material.

Nosy Neighbors

While Darabont was filming the pilot episode of The Walking Dead, some neighbors who lived close by to the set believed that the actor Michael Rooker (Merle Dixon) was actually a sniper and called in a real SWAT team to respond.

Fortunately, everyone soon realized that a mistake had been made and so no one was arrested that day. You would assume that all of the TV cameras would have tipped the neighbors off, but it seems that there are still some people in the 21st century who aren’t aware of how TV shows are made.

As if the ‘walkers’ weren’t bad enough…

Punisher Wannabe

The eagle-eyed among you may have also spotted that the blood from the first walker that Rick Grimes kills left a stain shaped like a skull on his shirt. Was this a macabre coincidence or a deliberate reference to Marvel’s vigilante hero the Punisher?

During the time HBO considered producing The Walking Dead, Thomas Jane was originally attached to play a key role, presumably due to his previous experience working with Frank Darabont. The link here is that Jane actually played the Punisher in a big screen adaptation just a few years earlier. Maybe Darabont slipped this sly reference in for his old colleague…

What’s A Zombie?

For a show made specifically about zombies, don’t you find it strange that the word ‘zombie’ is never actually mentioned in The Walking Dead? The most common term is ‘walkers’, although they’re also occasionally referred to as ‘biters’ and even collectively as ‘the herd’.

Creator Robert Kirkman made a conscious decision to avoid the word ‘zombie’ as he wanted to portray a world where movies like Night of the Living Dead don’t exist, so that his characters had no concept of what they were facing. This deliberate omission also helps set The Walking Dead apart from the many zombie movies which specifically use the word ‘zombie’ on a regular basis.

Do The Math!

While regular cast members are frequently bumped off on The Walking Dead, viewers still watch hoping that their favorites will survive and even find a way to live without fear one day.

However, the odds of that ever happening may be even slimmer than you realize… It turns out that the ‘walkers’ outnumber the living by about 5, 000 to 1, so even if the principal characters all hook up to repopulate the earth, the numbers aren’t exactly in their favor. That’s before you even factor in all the psychotic humans who either went crazy after the apocalypse hit or simply took advantage of the situation to break whatever laws they wanted.

Walker School

Actually, forget maths! The only education anyone really needs is to learn how to act like a zombie. It turns out that the actors cast as ‘walkers’ on the show have to undergo rigorous training before they can appear on The Walking Dead in order to move in the correct manner.

Obviously, the ‘walkers’ need to move with slow, deliberate actions, but guess what their key instruction is… To look like they’re coming out of a bar at 2 a.m. The moral of the story here is that getting drunk near the AMC Studio may give you a shot at appearing on The Walking Dead. Busting out some dance moves may also give you a distinct advantage…

Segregation Is Wrong!

Don’t get too drunk though! As an ‘undead’ actor on The Walking Dead, you’ll be forced to eat your meals separately from the human actors in order to enhance the divide between the two groups on set.

While this may seem like a bid by the producers to create more authenticity in everyone’s performances, it could just be that the stars of the show are bored of having to take zombie selfies with the extras. Either way though… segregation is just plain wrong!

I have a dream…

The Never-Ending Story

Creator Robert Kirkman originally envisioned The Walking Dead comic as “the zombie movie that never ends” and this is what sets the show apart from similarly themed films. The ongoing format of television provides the writers with the opportunity to explore what could happen to the survivors long after the credits would have normally rolled.

You may not have noticed, but in order to show the passage of time, the walkers makeup has decayed more and more as the seasons have progressed. It may be subtle, but the difference is definitely there. Either that or the makeup artists just got lazier and lazier by the end of each season…

Gender Swap

Due to the nature of The Walking Dead, it’s not surprising to hear that most of the cast have stunt doubles. However, what you may not realize is that Carl Grimes’s stunt double is actually a 31 year-old woman called Savan Jade Wehunt.

During her time on the show, Wehunt has also doubled as Sophia and Penny, the Governors’ daughter. You have to respect actor Chandler Riggs for not being too offended about sharing his stunt double with two younger girls. Fine work if you can get it!

Three’s A Crowd

Although the cast regularly changes, switching members in and out as more characters die, the writers still strive to give each of the principal actors their time in the spotlight. Balancing an ensemble can be tricky, which is why it’s so impressive that the producers decided to devote one entire episode to only two characters in season four.

Episode twelve is titled ‘Still’ and only featured Daryl (Norman Reedus) and Beth (Emily Kinney)… alongside the obligatory zombies of course. The episode was directed by Julius Ramsay and explores the strained relationship the two characters share after they are split from the rest of their group following the prison attack.

We wouldn’t be surprised if another story line focusing solely on two characters from the main cast was included in the upcoming season. Imagine how brilliant another episode focusing solely on Michonne and Carl would be!

Doppelganger

In later series, Michonne has become the central female protagonist of the show and while great writing is vital, a lot of this success is down to the phenomenal performance of Danai Gurira, who does a fantastic job of bringing the katana wielding bad-ass to life.

Surprisingly though, Michonne’s debut in the second season finale is actually played by someone else, as the producers had not yet cast Gurira in the role. If you go back and watch the episode, you’ll realize that we never actually see Michonne’s face as she wears a hood throughout the scene.

Staring Contest

The special effects team have a lot of work to do on a show like The Walking Dead. Green screen is used frequently and the more grotesque deaths obviously require CGI to be convincing. Most importantly of all though, it’s vital that if a ‘walker’ blinks, it’s immediately edited out in post-production… right?

Ok, this may not seem particularly important, but if you think about it, zombies possess only basic motor control, so it makes sense that the ‘walkers’ would not be able to moisten their eyeballs with a blink here or there. Now that’s serious attention to detail.

Pickled People

Have you ever wondered how the actors cast as ‘walkers’ eat the flesh of their victims? It turns out that all of the organs are actually hams soaked in vinegar, so that the ‘walkers’ can enjoy the vile process to their hearts content. If you found yourself feeling strangely hungry as some ‘walkers’ pulled out the intestines of a poor victim, now you know why. Delicious.

Some of you may be wondering why the producers don’t just cast cannibals instead, saving money on vinegar soaked hams, but US labor laws can be a tricky thing…

Human Cutlets

When Dale died towards the end of season two, it was like a member of the family had passed away for some of the shows more hardcore fans. His demise was particularly surprising considering that the character dies much later on in the comics.

Apparently, the shows producers took that into consideration when constructing special effects for his death scene. Instead of using vinegar soaked hams for Dales organs, the crew splashed out a bit of extra money to make his guts out of chicken breasts instead. That’s actually a huge sign of respect in the world of zombie TV shows.

Hardcore Hardware

As one of the breakout stars of the show, Norman Reedus has gained a huge following for his role as Daryl Dixon. The character is so popular that Activision even made a video game called Survival Instinct which only featured him and his brother Merle from the main cast.

Women want Daryl and men want to be him, but if you’re one of his more die-hard fans, you may want to settle for just buying the same kick-ass crossbow Daryl uses to take out ‘walkers’ on the show. It’s called a Horton Scout HD 125, it’s available from Walmart and it retails for around $300. You’re welcome.

Spin-Off Time

Finally, fans should rejoice at not only the prospect of a fifth season, but also because the shows creator Robert Kirkman has confirmed that a new companion series is due to be made in the next few years. The spin-off will tell a brand-new story featuring a completely different cast, but will still occupy The Walking Dead Universe currently inhabited by Grimes and co.

What’s particularly interesting is that Kirkman says the idea of making a new show “that isn’t tethered by the events of the comic book, and is truly a blank page” has set his creativity racing. If that’s how the creator of The Walking Dead feels, you should be feeling the same way. Fact. In the meantime, at least we still have the fifth season to look forward to, which could end up being the best one yet…

Which fact interested you much? Were there any big surprises in there? And do you know any more facts that fans of the show would love to hear? Let us know in the comments section below!

Source – whatculture

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