Robert Kirkman says Glenn's death is necessary because 'there's a lot of material that comes from Glenn's death in the comics.'
- Oct 29, 2016
AceShowbiz - While "The Walking Dead" sometimes put a twist on the fate of some characters, that wasn't the case with Glenn. The character met his demise at the hands of Negan in the seventh season premiere, much like how the character's death was depicted in issue 100 of "The Walking Dead" comic book.
So why showrunner Scott M. Gimple and executive producer Robert Kirkman decided to keep the said scene intact? Kirkman, the author of the comic book series, tells EW, "It's just that there's a lot of material that comes from Glenn's death in the comics."
"And while we do try to change things up to keep things interesting for the audience, and for me, this is one that there's so much that comes from Rick," he goes on explaining, "there's so much with Negan, because that character is someone that he killed, and definitely Maggie is someone that kind of gets put on the trajectory that affects a great number of stories and a great number of characters moving forward. So it was kind of essential that that part of the scene at least remained intact, unfortunately."
Kirkman says they "did discuss options," but "at the end of the day, we were like, pulling the thread on this sweater just pulls too many things apart and it's too difficult to get back on that trajectory without that death."
The fact that Kirkman wrote Glenn's death in the comic after Steven Yeun was cast as the character made it hard for Kirkman. "There are a lot of other big deaths that happened, but they were all done in the comic before the person was cast, so Glenn was actually the first time while I was writing the comic where I was like, 'Oh, geez,' " he admits.
"I have a connection to it and an affinity for it because I've been spending so much time with this fake character," Kirkman goes on sharing. "But Glenn was the first time there was an actual human being type to it in such an intimate way so it does make things a little weird and more difficult, but at the same time I can't allow that to change the way that I write stories."
Admitting that killing off characters on the TV show is especially difficult because he's going to miss the actors "and it's just not a fun process," Kirkman adds, "But it's something that we all agree the story needs, and it definitely makes the show better and it makes things heightened and cool. It's tough but we gotta do what we gotta do."
In other news, Yeun has apparently got a new gig. Having portrayed Glenn on the hit AMC series for the past seven years, he appeared in the Thursday, October 27 episode of "CONAN" as Conan O'Brien's stand-in during rehearsal. But Yeun wasn't the right person for the job as he's shown having a tantrum, ripping up index cards, telling everyone they're fired and even forcing everyone to listen to him play the guitar.
