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Another high-level showrunner departure for an AMC series. AMC just announced that it has renewed flagship drama The Walking Dead for a fourth season. But Glen Mazzara, who had served as showrunner following the abrupt departure of creator/original showrunner Frank Darabont early into the 
second season, is leaving. Speculations about Mazzara’s future on the show started when AMC didn’t follow its regular routine of giving The Walking Dead an early pickup despite the record-breaking ratings performance of the show’s recent fall portion of Season 3. There had been rumors that Mazzara was not happy on the show and may follow the slew of other showrunners who have departed AMC series – The Walking Dead‘s Frank Darabont, whom Mazzara succeeded, Rubicon creator/exec producer Jason Horwitch, who exited during production on its first and only season, and most recently Hell On Wheels showrunner John Shiban, who left after two seasons. (Additionally, the deals of Hell creators/executive producers Joe and Tony Gayton were not renewed after Season 2.) AMC also went through contentious renegotiations with Mad Men‘s Matt Weiner and Breaking Bad‘s Vince Gilligan. “AMC is a tough place,” one agent told me. Darabont tapped Glen Mazzara as an executive producer and his No. 2 heading into Season 2, after Mazzara wrote a freelance script in Season 2. Mazzara was quickly elevated to showrunner when Darabont left.
Related: Kurt Sutter Slams AMC Over Showrunner Exit
“Both parties acknowledge that there is a difference of opinion about where the show should go moving forward, and conclude that it is best to part ways,” AMC and Mazzara said in a joint statement. “This decision is amicable and Glen will remain on for post-production on season 3B as showrunner and executive producer… AMC is grateful for his hard work. We are both proud of our shared success.” Here are individual statements from Mazzara and The Walking Dead executive producers Robert Kirkman, on whose comic the series is based, and Gale Anne Hurd:
My time as showrunner on The Walking Dead has been an amazing experience, but after I finish season 3, it’s time to move on. I have told the stories I wanted to tell and connected with our fans on a level that I never imagined. It doesn’t get much better than that. Thank you to everyone who has been a part of this journey. – Glen Mazzara
I am in full support of both AMC and Glen Mazzara in the decision they have come to and believe the parties came to this decision in the best interest of the future of the show. I thank Glen for his hard work and appreciate his many contributions to The Walking Dead and look forward to working with him as we complete post production on Season 3. I am also excited to begin work on another spectacular season of this show that I know means so much to so many people. This show has always been the result of a wide range of extremely talented men and women working tirelessly to produce their best work collectively. I believe the future is bright for The Walking Dead. Thank you to the fans for your continued support. – Robert Kirkman
I am appreciative and grateful to Glen for his hard work on ‘The Walking Dead.’ I am supportive of AMC and Glen’s decision and know that the series is in great hands with one of the most talented and dedicated casts and crews in the business. I look forward to the show’s continued success. – Gale Anne Hurd
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What is wrong with AMC???? Is there a moment where strong writer/show runners will tell their agents don’t go there? Or am I in fantasy land…?
AMC doesn’t like or want showrunners with a strong vision. The facts are in. Weiner has lasted but the struggles have been enormous. Agents at the top agencies tell their clients not to go there. AMC needs to take a look at themselves internally and do some real soul searching or they’re going to end up as dead as Lifetime. AMC ruined The Killing because their marketing department didn’t talk to creative and as a result put together a campaign that made the audience have a different expectation than what was delivered on screen. Showrunners and show creators are what make great television. Not executives and marketing.
I really respect that they acknowledged creative differences instead of pretending otherwise and leaving it up for all of us to speculate what might have happened. Can’t wait for more of this amazing show!
I’m certainly glad that the show will “live” to see another season, but it concerns me when I read that “both parties acknowledge that there is a difference of opinion about where the show should go moving forward . . .”.
I am in absolute agreement with you and I am now wondering if there will be a 4th season ?
No Glen Mazzara? That’s a bummer.
Wow. Another showrunner gone from the series. Season 3 has been excellent so far, I wonder what the difference of opinion in the direction of the series was? I would love to know. I really hope they move away from the comic book and into new ground rather then keeping with the borefest that the comic became after the Woodburry story arc.
Don’t you mean after the first issue hit the stands?
The show has not been the same since Frank Darabont was fired. I have the pleasure to be working with him again on LA NOIR. He is moving on to create ANOTHER hit show. This time for TNT.
holy crap! its bernthal… noe
Is this AMC’s way to flex some muscle since they’re too cowardly to confront Matthew Weiner?
Matt Weiner put AMC on the map with “Mad Men,” a show that has earned all the awards and acclaim that AMC execs need to feel good about themselves and justify their absurd salaries. Weiner = “Mad Men.” That’s why they bend over for Weiner. They can’t get rid of him.
“Walking Dead” earns huge ratings and achieves the same result for the suits (raising executive boners), but Glen Mazzara is not essential to the series. “Walking Dead” did exist and can exist without him. This is not to say he has not done a GREAT job and isn’t talented. He’s just not essential in the same way.
Mad Men is made at a fraction of the cost of most shows. Matt Weiner may be controversial, but he creates an amazing show. And since when was it considered bad to clash with the suits — especially in the name of making a great show?
This is exactly why no studio and less and less writers want to work at AMC. They simply don’t know what they’re doing. For such a clueless group (yes, Suzy, that’s you), sort of a miracle they have the shows they’ve had. Ask Warner Horizon, FTVS, Etc how they feel about working there, and they’ll al say the same–they don’t want to do it. Good for the Lionsgates and Endemols of the world, bad for the shows. Mazzara saved the show.
This sucks. Glen rocks and this was the best season of Walking Dead yet.
What the HELL is going on over there? Is AMC trying to guarantee no quality showrunner ever approaches them again? WTF?
This was AMC being pigs. Plain & Simple. The show does gangbusters for them, and makes them a killing and they didn’t want the man who helped make the show a massive hit to be rewarded. Mazzara leaving the show is about the greed of amc, not about creative, but money.
This is just another in a long line of bad decisions by the Network. With Breaking Bad ending, mad men becoming a snooze fest, you’d think they’d do whatever they could to keep their biggest show on track. Not the genuises at amc. Between Rubicon, hiring John Wirth to run Hell on Wheels, and now letting Mazzara go, this network continues to prove they’re clueless to creative.
AMC needs Christina Wayne back at the helm of the Network. She had taste, treated creatives with respect, and built this network. Susie Fitzgerald and her current creative team are slowly tearing that apart.
Good bye Glen, you’re a class act and one of the best show runners in town.
Bring back Christina Wayne!
Somebody on the inside please come on and explain why the turn over? What’s really going on?
Frank should never have been pushed out. He is an amazing filmmaker. Who else will Robert kick to the curb? Wow. Happy Holidays Glenn.
Gee, I dunno, but Robert created the show, the characters, the original storyline. Maybe he should have the right to kick people to the curb if he’s not happy with the way things are headed.
Robert has been ruining his own comic for a long time now. It limped into issue 100 and pissed off the fan base by killing a MAJORLY loved characer for no reason. His entire focus is on his fantasy Michonne. He won’t let anythign happen to that character.
That’s where the show is going. Every episode and plug is just there to talk about how great this one character is ALL THE TIME
It sucks. Not the actress mind you, she’s cool, but her character is weak and predictable. Boring.
Robert should just let the professionals do what they do best while he still has a fan base
Great shows are made by great storytellers. Period. Let’s let the bean counters at AMC write the next season themselves.
This is quibbling, I know, but is that show really their “flagship”. Yes, I know it is the highest-rated, but I feel like “Mad Men” is the show that transformed the network from a platform to re-run Clint Eastwood movies into a original programming juggernaut. I know this has nothing to do with this story. Just nit-picking.
Mad Men is old. It has its diehard fans but the tv public isn’t excited about it anymore.
I see a pattern forming again… AMC IS SUCH BULLSHIT. They will serve as the death of this show.
This is unfortunate. Seems like AMC won’t let a showrunner on WD have more than a season and a half. No top tier showrunner is going to step in as the 3rd showrunner, even if it’s for the highest rated cable show of all time. I’m hoping they can grab someone from the Breaking Bad writer’s room and give them a shot showrunning. Sorry to see Mazaraa go, this season has been the best yet. Hopefully, some of the writing staff and behind the scenes crew he brought on this year don’t jump ship with him. Best of luck to him with his future projects.
Good riddance! Mazzara is the reason Darabont left, and Mazzara may have been showrunner, but he made no room for suggestions. It was pretty much his way, or the highway. I’m looking forward to the show’s future now that they have some wiggle room with the plot!
you’re obviously clueless.
You’re a moron, my friend.
Everyone knows that Darabont was incompetent at running a show. He expected the time and money and schedule of a feature and he couldn’t handle the stress. He literally went nuts.
Mazzara deserves HUGE credit for coming in and saving things, and taking the show to new heights. A class act in a messy situation!
Well, well, well. They fired Frank, the reason for the show’s popularity, adn now Glen is stepping down as well. Reap what you show.
“Sow”, damnit to tarnation, “sow.”
Another brilliant move by AMC. Who else will be leaving because of creative differences? Sickened by this news. Looks like 4 & out. Thanks AMC!
AMC = All MY Cash
Oh, my gosh! Turbulence at AMC! People quitting, getting fired! Let’s all hate AMC! Fools. Keep in mind what Orson Welles character said in the film The Third Man:
“In Italy for thirty years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love; they had five hundred years of peace and democracy. And what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.”
I don’t care how much dark, nasty strife there is at AMC as long as they keep putting great dramas filled with dark, nasty strife on TV. You want an easy life? Go make “Blue Skies” drivel (and cuckoo clocks) for USA.
Orson Welles also famously said, “I started at the top and spent my career working my way to the bottom.” So yeah, that’s a good guy to quote from. Especially as a reason for AMC treating their talent like they are mere cogs in the machine. All for the purpose of squeezing more profit from their only profitable show. What sets these top cable series apart is a network with the constitution to stand by their creative teams through thick and thin. It is only one or two bad decisions that separates cable programming from the mindless drivel on broadcast these days. Lemme guess, next AMC will start stripping “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” weeknights as a lead-in for 10:30pm Jay Leno slot…you reap what you sew.
“Sow”, goddamnit! LOL, why can’t people here get this right????
“MoreTears”
That character Welles played was a black-market war profiteer who made his living selling watered-down medicine to children, and who ends up dying in a sewer.
Stop disgracing yourself. Seriously, it’s getting sad.
I’ve seen the movie, thanks. But the character’s point is apropos on this occasion, at least when it comes to creativity and tumult. And obviously the kind of tumult we are talking about isn’t literal warfare, nor bloodshed of any kind.
And yet you still insist on being deliberately obtuse.
Executive micromanagement is not the kind of creative “tumult” that results in good work. Mad Men and Breaking Bad are prestige shows that have been able to flourish IN SPITE of AMC’s antics, not because of them. And not as a result of some imagined “creative friction” generated by Charlie Collier.
AMC is probably slashing the budget again since they are probably not seeing any Mad Men profit.
Untrue.
Mad Men makes them tons of cash. It’s made for very little money, sells around the world, they now have a friggin’ clothing line…and it put them on the map. Walking Dead is much, much more expensive to make (though of course it has higher ratings as well).
IN OTHER WORDS…..
Glen “I think we should go in a really cool, dark comic-booky direction with the season 3 finalé and into season 4, go in a groundbreaking direction that no one would see coming.” — AMC: “No, we should stretch this show out as long as possible, like season 6 of “Dexter” or the entire franchise of “Smallville”… y’know, throw some boring stuff in there, keep it light and try to make it to season 10.”
This is a bad sign for fans. Good sign for money-hungry execs at AMC.