Walking Dead TV Series Given Greenlight by AMC

It’s official.  According to Variety shooting on the Frank Darabont-helmed Walking Dead series (not just a pilot, as previously reported) will begin shortly, and is scheduled to air this coming October.

AMC has ordered a total of six episodes of the series that revolves around a group of survivors of a zombie apocalypse. Darabont penned and directed the pilot and will exec produce with Kirkman, Gale Anne Hurd of Valhalla Motion Pictures and David Alpert of Circle of Confusion, which will be funded entirely inhouse by AMC parent Rainbow Media. Charles Eglee, a seasoned TV drama showrunner, has also boarded the project as an exec producer…

AMC… ultimately decided to go straight to series after hearing Darabont’s vision for a six-episode arc… ‘He’s taken the baseline road map of the underlying material and just blew it out to the next level,’ said Joel Stillerman, AMC’s senior veep of programming, production and digital content. ‘There’s stuff in there that will make the people who love the comics very happy and some surprises in there as well.’

Exciting, eh?

UPDATE: I just learned to spell “Walking!”