"The Walking Dead" Showrunner Glen Mazzara Looks Ahead to Season 3

[JamesG]

Producer Glen Mazzara Looks Ahead to Season 3 of "The Walking Dead"
by Alyse Wax
3/21/12


Yesterday, executive producer Glen Mazzara sat down with several journalists to talk about season two's fiery ending, and what path the third season will take.





On Bringing in Michonne:

Michonne is one of the lead characters in the graphic novel, so we're excited to finally introduce her. She is a loner. She's a kick ass character. She's very dynamic and we really see her as a very, very important addition to the cast.

She's a significant character and she'll be carrying a lot of story, so we're excited about her. The reason that the character's cloaked at the end of season one was because we had not cast the actress. So that is a cheat there.









On Killing Off Dale:

He had to go. He had to go because by getting rid of Dale, you lose the moral compass of the group and, again, we just wanted to burn it all down by the end of the season.









On Merle:

Merle is still out there. I'm excited to figure out what to do with him. So I would say he's on the horizon.









On Going to Prison:

Right now I do see that prison as a significant storyline for Seasons 3 and Season 4. I do think that's a major story line. You know, and I know we were on the farm for longer than perhaps people wanted. There were reasons for that.

I think what we want to do is make sure that that prison does not become claustrophobic. I think the farm played a little claustrophobic for people. The farm -- now that the entire landscape has fallen to the zombie apocalypse and zombies are literally at the gate of the prison -- if you see the graphic novel, that prison is really, you know, a very, very small, safe corner and there's a lot of danger around. So it won't feel like we are bottled up in the same way that we were on the farm in Season 3.

So I do think that prison is a significant storyline. But we're interested also in opening up the world. You know, the Governor has the world of Woodbury. There are other factors out there in the world, other groups. So I think that Rick's group is really stumbling into a much larger world.









On Incorporating Comic Book Storylines:

There's a lot of great material from the comic book and this show would have to go on 20 years to get to all of it. I think the Tyrese character is someone that we're interested in introducing at some point. We still have Morgan and Duane are out there from the pilot. We're interested in them.

And there's new characters that will be original to the series not coming straight form the comic book. I think I said yesterday to someone that I think Season 1 and 2 have been prologue and now it feels like we're hitting the ground running.

I sort of see Season 3 as resetting the show in terms of what I really hope it can be.









On the Human Threat vs. the Zombie Threat:

Zombies will never take a back seat. We will always have the human drama and we would like to introduce a significant human threat. But we love writing the zombie material and I think those zombies are now fully integrated into the world.

We're not waiting for the zombies anymore to reach us. They are there. They are within in our eyesight, all the time. They are part of the landscape. So we expect, there to still be a balance of zombie and human threat but the zombies will never take a back seat on this show.









On Zombifying Himself:

Yes, I would love to do that. Unfortunately, I would probably be horrible at it and get fired day 1 because I am a terrible actor. But I do want to do that. I'd be crazy not to. That'll be fun.

So I'd certainly do it. I was thinking of doing it for TCA but I thought that would be hard to explain. So we'll see what happens.

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