Frank Darabont decides Frank Darabont's script was better, fires entire writing staff of The Walking Dead

AMC’s The Walking Dead has been a huge ratings hit for AMC, and seems generally regarded as one of the few saving graces of an otherwise dismal season of new television shows. It’s perfect—a little too perfect, you understand. Ergo, its entire writing staff must be fired in order to stave off the complacency and laurel-resting that inevitably sets in after six mostly good to great episodes. That’s what Frank Darabont just did—not exactly for those reasons that we just made up, of course, but because it seems like he didn’t really use his staff in the first place: Deadline reports that on the four of six episodes he didn’t write all by himself, Frank Darabont still felt that the Frank Darabont draft was better, co-writing or even totally rewriting them all.

And since two of those non-Frank Darabont four were written by non-staff members—comic creator Robert Kirkman and The Shield producer Glen Mazzara—Darabont is considering adopting a freelance model for next season, similar to the Starz/BBC series Torchwood. Although, it remains to be seen whether the Writers Guild will have something to say about that. In the meantime, amateur zombie writers may want to start polishing up their scripts in time for the show’s tentative second season premiere next October.