As is often said, the traditional prestige surrounding movies has switched to TV in recent years, with many successful television dramas such as Game of Thrones, Breaking Bad and several more being acclaimed for their cinematic quality. Another example, of course, is The Walking Dead. AMC’s zombie drama has had its ups and downs, sure, but it’s always been more thrilling, emotional, scary and darker than the average film occupying theaters these days.
The show’s producer, Gale Anne Hurd, agrees – and she should know. Hurd is a prolific movie and TV producer who’s worked on numerous productions such as Aliens and The Terminator over the years. While chatting with Cinema Blend, she was asked how The Walking Dead compares to the celebrated action movies she’s been responsible for. In reply, she sang the show’s praises, in particular citing the longer runtime as a big plus.
“Well, when you consider that we’re telling 16 hours of stories, it certainly compares, because over those 16 hours, we have action, we have suspense, we have horror. And we have an opportunity to go even more deeply into the characters and their conflicts and drama than you can ever do in a 2-and-a-half-hour movie.”
Hurd’s probably hit the nail on the head here about the benefits of the small screen over the silver one. For both viewers and actors, TV is such a draw because – if done well – it allows us to go deeper into the story and explore the characters more than there’s room to do in a standard film. It’s no wonder, then, that cinema seems to be trying to beat TV at its own game, with ongoing movie franchises and shared universes being all the rage in Hollywood at the moment.
From the action perspective, The Walking Dead will hopefully live up to Hurd’s previous projects this season, in particular. As Rick and the assembled communities go against Negan and the Saviors, we can expect an all out war to come when the show returns to AMC on October 22nd.
