ALIVE or Dead?

Came across this last week, front page news in Variety. Yes, it was a bit of a gut punch:

AMC is venturing into zombie-drama territory with multi-hyphenate Frank Darabont.

Cabler is close to finalizing one of the richest development deals ever with Darabont to write and direct a series adaptation of the Image Comics graphic novel series "The Walking Dead," penned by Robert Kirkman. Gale Anne Hurd of Valhalla Motion Pictures and David Alpert of Circle of Confusion are also on board to exec produce.

Project is set among a group of zombie survivors of an apocalypse who are led by a police officer, Rick Grimes, in search of a safe place to live.

Full article is here.

If you'll recall, AMC is where ALIVE, the zombie survival TV show Judith & Garfield Reeves-Stevens and I co-created with Epic Level, fell about one meeting short of a green light. So, ouch.

But Judy and Gar don't see this as a bad thing. Sure, this means ALIVE is permanently dead at AMC, but it already was. If anything, this shows that we had a good idea. This is proof of concept. In fact, they think this could breathe new life into the project. If there's one thing Hollywood loves, it's an idea someone else already had. If AMC's changed their mind about zombies on TV, who else might?

Also, they pointed out that any Walking Dead series is likely to be excessively expensive to make, considering the weight of the names attached and the ongoing royalties associated with a licensed property. So who knows if it will ever even make it out of development? It might die, but leave the ground fertile for another zombie show. Which is what I'm hoping for. Sorry, Frank. But not really.

Judy & Gar have a contact eager to take ALIVE to Fox and Sony, and other places as well. We'll keep our bony, rotting fingers crossed.