“The Walking Dead” Writers Canned: Report

The dead aren’t the only one’s walking on AMC.

The cable network confirmed to news outlets Wednesday it’s planning “changes to the writing staff” of “The Walking Dead.”

The news comes a day after Deadline.com reported the hit zombie drama’s main executive producer was considering cutting the show’s team of scribes loose and hiring roaming freelancers instead.

It’s unclear how many writers producer Frank Darabont will kill off after this weekend’s season one finale. But AMC said Robert Kirkman, the creator of the original "Walking Dead" comic, would stay involved with the project, The New York Times reported.

That’s good news for fans of the “Vato” episode, which Kirkman wrote, and which featured the first zombie massacre of the season.

Kirkman, who’s also an executive producer on the show, said in an interview with EW last month that he’s enjoyed the process of adapting his comic for television as part of a “team” of writers.

“It was like writing with a safety net,” he said. “I think it makes the writing that much stronger and it’s a really fun process.”

“The Walking Dead’s” Halloween premiere scored a record 5.3 million viewers for AMC and has continued to draw eyeballs and critical acclaim from the living throughout its six-episode run.

With the network having ordered up 13 episodes of “Walking Dead” for season two, execs are betting that tinkering with the show’s formula won’t be the end of the world for the post-apocalyptic thriller.

Let’s hope it doesn’t turn out to be a brain-dead move.

Selected Reading: Deadline, NYT, EW

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