{"id":629585,"date":"2023-04-15T09:49:34","date_gmt":"2023-04-15T14:49:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.sellorbuyhomefast.com\/index.php\/2023\/04\/15\/an-interview-with-the-walking-dead-creator-robert-kirkman-on-games-and-hollywood-the-deanbeat\/"},"modified":"2023-04-15T09:49:34","modified_gmt":"2023-04-15T14:49:34","slug":"an-interview-with-the-walking-dead-creator-robert-kirkman-on-games-and-hollywood-the-deanbeat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2023\/04\/15\/an-interview-with-the-walking-dead-creator-robert-kirkman-on-games-and-hollywood-the-deanbeat\/","title":{"rendered":"An interview with The Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman on games and Hollywood | The DeanBeat"},"content":{"rendered":"

Robert Kirkman, chief creative officer and cofounder of\u00a0Skybound Entertainment<\/a>\u00a0and the creator of The Walking Dead, has been crossing media borders for decades. I\u2019m very excited he\u2019ll be a speaker at our GamesBeat Summit 2023<\/a> event, and I was even more excited to interview him this week to give a preview of what he\u2019ll be talking about at our event.<\/p>\n

The Walking Dead debuted as a comic book 20 years ago in 2003. It became a hit TV series in 2010 and had a 10-year run. And then the video game series from Telltale debuted in 2012 and sold more than 80 million copies.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s what we used to call transmedia until people decided it was a dirty word because all transmedia efforts failed. But somehow, Kirkman made it work and Skybound Entertainment became an umbrella for numerous creators trying to accomplish the same thing. <\/p>\n

By making it through the jungle of Hollywood and games, Kirkman and his company became models for how big investments in things like a \u201cwriters room\u201d could scale a franchise across numerous media and create new points of entry into the same creative universe. How do you spread a narrative across so many different platforms? And how do you accomplish scale without exhausting a franchise? <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n

Event<\/h3>\n
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GamesBeat Summit 2023<\/p>\n
Join the GamesBeat community in Los Angeles this May 22-23. You\u2019ll hear from the brightest minds within the gaming industry to share their updates on the latest developments.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n Register Here <\/a>\n <\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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We talked about these topics as a kind of preview for our event in May. The GamesBeat Summit 2023<\/a> event takes place on May 22-23 in person in Los Angeles and on May 24 online. (You can get 40% off the ticket price with this code: GBSDEANNEWS; early-bird pricing ends today; Facebook Gaming is the headline sponsor of the event and the session). Joining Kirkman in a fireside chat will be Marcus \u201cdjWHEAT\u201d Graham, vice president of community development at Fortis Games and a former longtime leader at Twitch.<\/p>\n
They\u2019re going to talk about one of the key themes of the conference: Hollywood and Games \u2014 Are they one ecosystem, and if so, how has that changed? It fits with our general theme of The Next Level, and the session will address a big question: How can a video game, or any content, go to the next level?<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s an edited transcript of our interview.<\/p>\n
$\"Marcus$
Marcus Graham, aka djWHEAT, of Fortis Games and Robert Kirkman, chairman of Skybound Entertainment and producer of The Walking Dead.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
GamesBeat: Part of the theme for our conference is this crossover that seems to be happening, perhaps with better quality than ever before, between things like comics and film and games. You\u2019re right at the center of that. When you were starting out, could you describe what some of that process was like for you, and how we\u2019ve gotten to a better stage now?<\/strong><\/p>\n
Robert Kirkman: <\/strong>The best example you could probably draw from is the original Super Mario movie and the new Super Mario movie. The contrast between the two is a good example of how things were done.<\/p>\n
When I adapted a screenplay for Invincible for Paramount Pictures in 2005, the direction from the studio was, \u201cHow do we make this more like The Godfather so people will see it? You can\u2019t have a movie with more than one superhero in it because no one will watch that. How do we adapt a comic book in a way that people will want to see?\u201d It was all very much, \u201cWe need to figure out how to fix this dumb thing. People like this dumb thing. I don\u2019t understand why. Let\u2019s figure out a way to fix it so that more people like it.\u201d<\/p>\n
GamesBeat: A lot less respect for the original work.<\/strong><\/p>\n
Kirkman: <\/strong>Definitely less respect for the original work, and this mentality of, \u201cWe know how to make good things. We\u2019ll take this thing and improve it.\u201d You can see that in the original Super Mario movie. They jump. How do they jump? Give \u2018em big metal boots. You can\u2019t just fight a big turtle guy. Let\u2019s have Dennis Hopper with weird hair. That might be better.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a lot of budget constraints and things like that leading to certain decisions. But if I feel like the animated Mario movie was made even 10 years ago, there would be more effort made to change the visual designs. The fact that the movie has the exact same visuals from the games that everyone recognizes is a big deal. That\u2019s significant. A massive team of designers would have tried to \u201cimprove\u201d on that look many years ago. But after the Sonic the Hedgehog debacle, I think people see that if it isn\u2019t broke, let\u2019s not try to fix it.<\/p>\n
$\"Renfield:$
Skybound\u2019s Renfield: Bring Your Own Blood looks as campy as the movie.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
GamesBeat: You mean the original design of the character that pissed everyone off?<\/strong><\/p>\n
Kirkman: <\/strong>Yeah, the trailer came out and they said, \u201cWhat if Sonic had teeth? Let\u2019s make him look more human.\u201d And then the internet revolted and they scrambled to come up with a better design. The design they ended up with was pretty much the same as the game. It\u2019s important to note that the reason they were able to scramble and go with a different design was because the design was already done for the game. They just pivoted to that.<\/p>\n
I guess this is a long-winded way of saying that at some point along the way people realized, \u201cHey, maybe this stuff isn\u2019t stupid. Maybe we should show it a little bit more respect.\u201d<\/p>\n
GamesBeat: I saw a comment on social that said, \u201cIt turns out that the trick to adapting a video game to the movies is actually adapting the game.\u201d Your purpose is not to mess with it, but to try to execute it, to make it happen as it is.<\/strong><\/p>\n
Kirkman: <\/strong>I won\u2019t name the show, but I know that there was a moment where Scott Gimple and I were talking to a showrunner on another show that was also based on a comic. We had just done a panel where we had described our process. Scott and I would take a chunk of the comic and say, \u201cOkay, we\u2019ll adapt from this issue to this issue this season. These are the high points. This is the structure of the season. Let\u2019s build from these moments to structure the season.\u201d But it was always about finding the best parts from the comic and putting them directly in the show and building around that.<\/p>\n
The showrunner of the other show came up to us and said, \u201cIt\u2019s just so fortunate that you guys are able to do that. We get in the writers room and we have to build everything from scratch and figure out new ways into things. We\u2019re not able to do that.\u201d The guy walked away and Scott and I said, \u201cHe\u2019s got a comic too. I don\u2019t know why he\u2019s not using it.\u201d And I think the show suffered for that approach.<\/p>\n
GamesBeat: I always did want to ask, what is the value of the writers room? How did you come upon that as one of the solutions for scaling some of your own imaginations?<\/strong><\/p>\n
Kirkman: <\/strong>I\u2019d never worked in a writers room prior to Walking Dead. It was fascinating for me because once you entered into the room, you started to realize that every single person in that room has something to add. They have some angle into a different kind of perspective that they see every story through. It weaves this tapestry where I may not have experienced situation A, but this person may have. Or experienced something similar. If you\u2019re really using the writers room to the fullest potential, it enriches every story. You have a bunch of different angles enhancing everyone\u2019s perspective as they craft stories.<\/p>\n
When we partnered with Telltale to make the Clementine game, the Telltale Walking Dead series, we were very adamant that we wanted to take that writers room approach and use it in that game, the way that the prior Telltale games really hadn\u2019t. That was taking the TV approach and moving it toward video games, which seemed to have a pretty good result.<\/p>\n
GamesBeat: It seems like the other benefit is you do get a lot more volume of narrative. If you need something for the Telltale games, you have that part of the team. You also have the mobile games that may have come along later. It seems like there can be so many narratives produced, whether they\u2019re intertwined or separate threads. New characters. That\u2019s something the writers room can be good for.<\/strong><\/p>\n
Kirkman:<\/strong> That approach for all of our games has allowed us to generate a tremendous amount of story in a very reasonable amount of time. You have a full team going. That\u2019s something that you need to generate a lot of story for video games. I feel like most people know that, but it\u2019s one of the things\u2013I don\u2019t want to write a video game, because a script for a video game is 10 times longer than a script for a TV show. That\u2019s an insurmountable task in my book.<\/p>\n
GamesBeat: I thought it was interesting that The Last of Us took the approach for an HBO series. Trying to squeeze a 25 to 30 hour video game experience into a two-hour movie, like with Uncharted\u2013it seems like you could never pull that off. If you have maybe nine hours to work with on a TV show, so much more of the material can get in. You can more fully tell that video game story.<\/strong><\/p>\n
Kirkman: <\/strong>In my case, at least five hours of the 26 hours of Uncharted is getting the puzzles wrong. If you eliminate that it can definitely fit in a TV show. But certain things adapt in certain forms better, I think. If it was a game with less narrative\u2013Sonic the Hedgehog. That probably works better as a movie because the narrative is somewhat succinct. It\u2019s not as robust as you would see in something like a Naughty Dog game. Comics are the same way. I guess some graphic novels could make a good movie, but when you have a continuing narrative that keeps going for a long time, that also lends itself to television.<\/p>\n
$\"Invincible$
Invincible is an Amazon series.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
GamesBeat: Was there anything you thought was notable about the transition from comics to TV for you, things that make you think about what\u2019s happening now? What was it like for you to transition to the Walking Dead television show compared to what you think might be happening with something like The Last of Us?<\/strong><\/p>\n
Kirkman:<\/strong> For me, I was lucky enough to be at the forefront of the time when people were starting to take comics seriously. The Iron Man movie had come out in 2008. That was extremely successful, and it was very faithful to the comics. Marvel\u2019s comic division had a lot of input in how that movie went.<\/p>\n
And Comic-Con was emerging as this huge vehicle that everyone was using to promote everything. If you had comic book street cred you actually had tremendous value all of a sudden. They would want someone like me to be able to attend Comic-Con and say, \u201cHey, everyone at Comic-Con, don\u2019t you want to watch this show? I\u2019m one of you! I love Comic-Con! Let\u2019s watch this show!\u201d I was fortunate enough to ride that wave. AMC wanted me to be involved. They wanted me to have a say in how the show went. When I spoke, people actually listened. Whereas in 2005 when I was adapting Invincible, it wasn\u2019t quite the exact same environment.<\/p>\n
That was very much a comics thing. What\u2019s happening now, I think, is that we\u2019re finally getting to the point where video games are getting respect. You can look at a game as strong as The Last of Us and you can see that there\u2019s value there. Neil Druckmann, he\u2019s someone to be respected and included, not someone to be brushed aside while you try to improve their work. It\u2019s good that video games are finally getting the same kind of respect that comics have gotten for at least a decade.<\/p>\n
GamesBeat: I happened to interview Lisa Joy when The Peripheral came out, as well as when Westworld came out. She was saying that they had a pretty complicated metaverse plot to The Peripheral. You\u2019re in one world but you\u2019re transferring yourself into another one. She was saying that she was very thankful to the Marvel movies for introducing the multiverse idea. It set the stage in the mainstream for people getting an idea of what this whole metaverse thing was all about. She felt like, \u201cIf I have a really complicated story to tell, at least I know people know what a multiverse is already.\u201d Hard science fiction and some of the complex stories to tell there\u2013the way was paved for that. I don\u2019t know if you see some of this happening on your side as well. The Walking Dead seems like it paved the way for a lot of things too.<\/strong><\/p>\n
Kirkman:<\/strong> I was going to say, are you trying to insinuate that The Walking Dead paved the way for The Last of Us?<\/p>\n
$\"Clementine$
Clementine was the hero of The Walking Dead series from Telltale Games.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
GamesBeat: Well, I don\u2019t know about that. But it feels like we\u2019re in a much period of success right now compared to\u2013<\/strong><\/p>\n
Kirkman:<\/strong> I think every little piece of fiction widens the experience that the audience is open to. The Walking Dead had the fortune to be debuting\u2013I want to say it was four months after the end of Lost. Lost was a show that was definitely boundary-pushing and ground-breaking in a lot of ways. It brought a lot of different science fiction concepts and action storytelling, a lot of different things to a huge television audience that made them accepting of things that were somewhat unusual on TV.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a lot of cop shows, a lot of lawyer shows, things like that. There were shows like The X-Files. Something like The X-Files probably helped make Lost popular, because it brought a bunch of different things that made it okay for them to appear in Lost. That helped The Walking Dead tremendously, because it opened an audience\u2019s eyes to something new. In that respect, yeah, I think that The Walking Dead definitely set the stage.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m sure there are certain people on this planet who would have felt like a show like The Last of Us was beneath them, at a certain point, if there hadn\u2019t been popular shows before that had introduced genre elements in a way that made it okay to watch it. It\u2019s the same reason that Marvel stuff is now cool and it\u2019s okay for the masses to enjoy it. People were getting picked on in the \u201890s for enjoying Marvel comics, but now you can\u2019t go somewhere without seeing the plainest normal person wearing a Marvel T-shirt.<\/p>\n
GamesBeat: Are there some lessons from The Walking Dead that you\u2019ve taken to the other properties that Skybound is backing now?<\/strong><\/p>\n
Kirkman: <\/strong>My main lesson I\u2019ve learned from The Walking Dead is to always try to provide the audience with something different, something new, something that they\u2019re not expecting. That\u2019s the thing that led to the success of The Walking Dead, whether it was the shocking character deaths, or the simple fact that it was zombie mythology being treated like it was a serious drama. There were a lot of elements to The Walking Dead that were unexpected and provided a unique experience, a vastly different experience than they were getting anywhere else on television. When I\u2019m working on something like Invincible, or the movie Renfield, or our various video game projects, I\u2019m always trying to find the angle to them where there\u2019s some kind of different element.<\/p>\n
Invincible is a superhero story that is appealing to an audience that\u2019s familiar with superhero stories, but it has horror-movie violence. It\u2019s a long-form character drama in a way that you haven\u2019t really seen in other superhero TV shows or movies. There\u2019s always some kind of element that\u2013it\u2019s not necessarily shocking for shocking\u2019s sake, but I\u2019m trying to give people an experience that they can only get from my stuff.<\/p>\n
GamesBeat: Are there thoughts or advice you might have for franchise owners when it comes to also making video games?<\/strong><\/p>\n
Kirkman:<\/strong> One thing that Skybound tries to do\u2013the video games are often an ancillary product. It\u2019s a side project, an extension of the core. Skybound tries to avoid that at all costs. We try to make sure that our video game projects are worthwhile in and of themselves and could be the core of the concept in and of themselves.<\/p>\n
$\"The$
The Walking Dead: Last Mile takes place in the Alaskan wilderness.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
The best example of that is the Walking Dead Telltale series. The characters, Lee and Clementine, are viable, interesting, core Walking Dead characters. Anyone who plays that video game could have only ever experienced The Walking Dead through that video games, and they would get an experience that is worthy of The Walking Dead, that is an authentic Walking Dead experience. It\u2019s not dependent on having an experience with The Walking Dead prior to that game.<\/p>\n
You could watch the TV show and then play that game, or you could read the comic and play that game, or you could play that game and watch the TV show, or play that game and read the comic. It\u2019s possible that you wouldn\u2019t even know which one came first. That\u2019s why The Walking Dead as a brand is so strong, just through all the things that have been done with it. That core aspect keeps it viable. You can\u2019t really say that about Star Wars. Especially up until recently. Recently there have been some great games, but most Star Wars games have been a side offshoot. This character or this character are going to do some things. They never really had a narrative that lived up to the original trilogy, at least until recently.<\/p>\n
GamesBeat: Do you think that tying these things together across media\u2013are we at a point where that\u2019s as good as it can be? Or do you think there is a next level where this all comes together in some kind of metaverse, something like that?<\/strong><\/p>\n
Kirkman: <\/strong>As far as coming together in a metaverse, I don\u2019t know what these buzzwords actually mean. Does that mean hanging out in a virtual space playing a video game while I\u2019m watching a movie? There have been attempts to have\u2013The Matrix was the first one, where there were scenes in the video game that tied into the movie and explained plot points from the movie. I think the last attempt I can remember was The Dark Tower, where the movie was going to tie into a TV show. I think there was going to be a video game component as well? Somebody\u2019s going to get that right at some point. I don\u2019t think it\u2019s happened yet.<\/p>\n
I think there is, on the horizon, some kind of connecting narrative where you get that video game experience and that TV show experience, the movie experience, the comic book experience, and it all ties in and holds together as an overall experience that benefits from having all the different parts.<\/p>\n
GamesBeat: It seems like the thing that everyone should get right first is the world. The world and its characters.<\/strong><\/p>\n
Kirkman:<\/strong> It\u2019s hard to just start with that. All those media are so complex in their own right. It\u2019s hard to build something of value while you\u2019re trying to do all those things at once. That\u2019s a hurdle. But at some point someone is going to be able to marry all these things together and it\u2019s going to be pretty spectacular.<\/p>\n
GamesBeat: I\u2019ve heard people talk a bit snarkily about how they\u2019ve mined all of comics, and now it\u2019s time for video games. Movies exhausted the material that they had in comic books and now they\u2019re looking for new things to exhaust. Is there a way to do this without hitting that wall? The idea that people get tired of what you\u2019re doing with\u2013not necessarily Marvel. But you can hit the wall, it seems like. Is there something to do to try to avoid that?<\/strong><\/p>\n
Kirkman:<\/strong> I think people take the wrong lessons from everything. If Marvel\u2019s recent string of movies has not been as profitable as the string of movies before it, it doesn\u2019t necessarily\u2013I mean, it\u2019s absurd to think that all comic book ideas have been mined. We\u2019re producing Invincible season two and three. I\u2019m confident that those are going to be absolutely amazing and cool as hell. I\u2019ll just say that on the record. I\u2019m very excited about that kind of stuff.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s an infinite number of comic books being adapted right now into various projects. A lot of people equate superheroes with comic books. \u201cComic book\u201d is not a genre. It\u2019s a medium. There are a thousand different kinds of comic books that haven\u2019t been adapted yet. I think it\u2019s somewhat cynical to say, \u201cOh, comic books have been exhausted and now we\u2019re going to video games.\u201d If video games end up being a massive wellspring of ideas that adds excitement and success to TV and movies in the same way that comics did, that\u2019s going to be great. I don\u2019t think that means people will draw less on comics. It just means that there will be two engines driving things.<\/p>\n
$\"The$
The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners VR game.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Again, I also would not count Marvel out. If there is a slump, it just gives them a comeback story. People will be excited about that. I\u2019m sure they have all kinds of things up their sleeve.<\/p>\n
GamesBeat: What are some things that\u2013when you think of the next level, are there things you want to see happen? Some of the more interesting collaborations that might be possible?<\/strong><\/p>\n
Kirkman: <\/strong>I don\u2019t know. I\u2019m watching the Super Mario Bros. movie. The thing that excites me about what\u2019s coming with more adaptations of video games, and better adaptations of video games\u2013when I see a comic book adapted that I was very familiar with, it\u2019s exciting for me to see the stuff that I saw translated in movie form, where it\u2019s moving and it\u2019s got sound and it\u2019s three dimensions and it\u2019s real. In the best cases it\u2019s an enhancement of what I\u2019ve experienced in a really cool way.<\/p>\n
What struck me in the Mario Bros. movie is that there were parts of the movie that were not designed to have an emotional punch or a deeply emotional moment. It wasn\u2019t baked into the movie. It wasn\u2019t intentional. But because of my experience playing the game \u2013 I\u2019ve played Mario games forever \u2013 there were deeply affecting emotional moments that shouldn\u2019t have, but because it was taking me back to my childhood and reminding me of my experiences I had while I was playing those games, it ended up being more effective and more engaging than I think the filmmakers even thought possible. That\u2019s interesting.<\/p>\n
I watched The Last of Us on TV, but I had never played the game. I never got around to setting aside the time to play it. I\u2019ve actually bought four versions of that game, because every time they would update I would buy it and think, \u201cOkay, this is the one I\u2019m going to play.\u201d I just never got around to it. I can only imagine that if I had played that game, the show would have had way more effect on me. In a sense\u2013it\u2019s not a comic book you read or a story you experienced. It\u2019s a story you lived. There were decisions that you as a person made that led to events you were then seeing in the TV show.<\/p>\n
I think there\u2019s an extra level of personal investment in games that, when filmmakers and showrunners on TV\u2013when they figure out a way to tap into that stuff, that\u2019s very exciting. That\u2019s going to result in some really interesting things moving forward.<\/p>\n
GamesBeat’s creed<\/strong> when covering the game industry is “where passion meets business.” What does this mean? We want to tell you how the news matters to you — not just as a decision-maker at a game studio, but also as a fan of games. Whether you read our articles, listen to our podcasts, or watch our videos, GamesBeat will help you learn about the industry and enjoy engaging with it. Discover our Briefings.<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
Read More<\/a>
\n Dean Takahashi<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Robert Kirkman, chief creative officer and cofounder of\u00a0Skybound Entertainment\u00a0and the creator of The Walking Dead, has been crossing media borders for decades. I\u2019m very excited he\u2019ll be a speaker at our GamesBeat Summit 2023 event, and I was even more excited to interview him this week to give a preview of what he\u2019ll be talking<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":629586,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22316,46,1528],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-629585","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-interview","8":"category-technology","9":"category-walking"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/629585","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=629585"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/629585\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/629586"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=629585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=629585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=629585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}