HITTING A MILESTONE
Walking Dead reaches 100 episodes
The Walking Dead Season 8 debuts Oct. 22, AMC
For seven seasons, SENOIA, GA. AMC’s The Walking Dead has explored a world where the dead roam the Earth while the living seek safety. There are characters whose faith is tested but find their grit. There are kissups who latch themselves onto leaders, their will to survive stronger than their pride. There are those who seize a new-found power to terrorize and bully. It’s often difficult to discern the difference between who’s good and who’s evil, something that evolves and can change from moment to moment.
As the show approaches its 100th episode — the kickoff to season 8 that launches on Sunday — the characters are on the verge of war, a battle pitting character Rick Grimes and his band of loyalists against Negan and the Saviours, mixed in with a few other communities whose allegiances shift without warning.
The main filming location is on a sprawling lot tucked behind a small South Georgia town where most of this new world has sprouted: Raleigh Studios, a constantly evolving set on 57 hectares, where all sorts of imaginary communities have been created from scratch.
The Heap — an actual mound of trash filled with all sorts of debris and cars no newer than 2010 (the year the world is said to have died) — was created in just three weeks to serve as the domain for Jadis (played by Pollyanna McIntosh).
The Hilltop, ruled over by drunkard and chauvinist Gregory (played by Xander Berkeley), took nearly four months to create. Alexandria is an actual subdivision that four real families call home and have to stay clear of the film crews that flock there six months out of the year.
The first season was shot largely in Atlanta. By the second season, Raleigh Studios in Senoia — about an hour south of Atlanta — had been created in this town of 4,000.
Not only does it allow the show to create and keep the communities that make up The Walking Dead, but it can be constantly reinvented.
The spot where Gabriel’s church once stood? It was torn down and became the dirt circle where season 6 ended with Rick and his crew kneeling before Negan, the spot where beloved characters Glenn and Abraham were slain at the end of Negan’s barbed-wire covered bat.
“This is pretty much hallowed ground,” said Tom Luse, the show’s executive producer. It was a tough scene to shoot, he said, and it was even tougher to lose not only two beloved characters but two actors among a crew that considers itself tight-knit.“I don’t know if we’ll shoot here again,” Luse said, adding later: “This is a shrine.”
Gale Anne Hurd, an executive producer, attributes much of the cast’s camaraderie to Andrew Lincoln, who plays lead character Grimes, a sheriff who emerged from a coma to find the zombie apocalypse has turned the world upside down.
“We work and live in a bubble. And it’s great that’s the case because no one has changed,” Hurd said. “That’s what is special about this show. Not one person from the (original) cast all of a sudden thinks they’re some sort of superstar and has a big trailer or an entourage. They’re still in two banger trailers.”
When did it start to dawn on them when the show would become a huge success and endure? For Hurd, it was fairly early: season 2.
“The second season was one in which with people arguably could say OK, it slowed down, they’re at the farm, it was focused significantly on character development and the fandom grew,” Hurd said.
“And in my mind knowing that there was action to come and there were bigger worlds, more worlds, more characters that if we were building viewers in season 2 that it was the kind of trajectory that made for a show that could endure.”
Greg Nicotero, special effects guru, co-executive producer and occasional-director, called this season’s debut its most propulsive — season 7 was a tough season to get through, the actors missing the chance to interact with a variety of colleagues and feeling isolated. The pace for season 8 will be accelerated and even the way it’s filmed will feel different.
“There’s gonna be some moments that people who have watched the show from the beginning will see and be like, ‘Oh, OK, I see what they’re doing here’ by paying tributes to specific moments over the last seven years,” Nicotero said.