The Walking Dead might be over with for the mainline series, but the show is going on with spinoffs and sidestories from that same universe. The man behind a large portion of that series, Greg Nicotero, is no stranger to horror movie fans. He’s been in the business and working for decades now. He recently sat down with our friend Brandon Davis on an episode of The Brandon Davis Show which is currently only available on thebrandondavisshow.com but was provided to ThatHashtagShow for an exclusive preview and breaking news. They got to talking about all things TWD including the infamous Glenn and Negan scene.

Here’s what Greg Nicotero had to say about it including what the original showrunner Frank Darabont thought.

It’s really funny because Frank Darabont and I talked about that later and his feeling about that was, ‘Well, I probably wouldn’t have done that on the show,’ because it wasn’t what the his view of The Walking Dead would have been and definitely was very, very controversial.”

“I remember being at one of the comic cons when issue 100 came out and we were at a breakfast and I was sitting with Robert [Kirkman] and Steven [Yeun], and Steven’s like, ‘You haven’t seen it yet, have you?’ And I’m like, ‘What?’ He goes, ‘Issue 100.’ They were having a conversation about it and it was like… here’s the image of Glenn calling out Maggie’s name.

And I went, ‘You’re kidding me! That’s how Glenn dies?’”

“it affected me. It really was emotional. Just like when Lori dies in the comic book, Lori is holding Judith when the governor attacks the prison and they both get killed. Falls on top of her. There were moments in the comic book that were so powerful that they stayed with you and, that, Glenn’s was one of them. And I think it was different for me with Glenn because Steven and I had been through so much together on the show, working together.

“Anytime a character dies, it was always hard. With Scott [Wilson] and Hershel… That was rough. I remember everything that every actor ever said to me. Scott said, ‘You know, they’re fattening me up, right?’ I’m like, ‘What are you talking about?’ He’s like, ’They’re fattening me up. I got a lot of really good stuff to do in this season, so I think I’m going to go.’ And that was before they had really even pitched all of that. I think maybe I knew that he was going to go, but I couldn’t tell him yet because we were on like episode three and his death was episode eight.

They went on to talk about the audience reaction to the whole scene and even the cultural impact that the show had, making it on SNL.

“It was partially like, we would have never changed how he died. What was so haunting to me in the comic book was that close up of him going Maggie with him. That haunted me was brutal, and it haunts it and that I’m just talking about the drawing.”

“So, maybe there was a version where we had shown less of that and it would have been less impactful and disturbed less people. But I still think that the outcome was Glenn was killed in a horrific, violent way. Whether how much of it we showed or didn’t show, I still think people would have reacted because they loved the character, they loved him. I never really thought one way or another how people would react. I made the episode that was presented to me and I’m proud of it. Look, to me, the best compliment was when Dave Chappelle parodied it on Saturday Night Live, man.”

“I went to one of Dave’s shows and thanked him and just said,’ I’m honored that you literally matched the frames, the shots that I did and it was amazing.’ And but look, I mean, was it brutal? Was it horrific? Was it a lot of things? Yeah. It was, I don’t know, really if even if we would have cut frames out of that or we would have shown less, I still think that the emotional impact would have been tough for people.

The Walking Dead lives on with spinoffs like The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon, The Walking Dead: Dead City, and in video games and other media.

For more on Horror, make sure to check back to That Hashtag Show.

Source: The Brandon Davis Show

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