Walking Dead exec producer Gale Anne Hurd has revealed that the violence in season 7 was toned after the controversial premiere.
This Walking Dead article contains spoilers.
It seems that AMC is listening to the fans when it comes to The Walking Dead, although perhaps not about every problem with the show - you know, like the fact that pretty much nothing happened in the overly-long and boring first half of season 7. But when it comes to that infamously gruesome premiere that many viewers felt was torture porn, the show has heard its fans loud and clear.
While speaking at a conference in Miami (via Variety), TWD exec producer Gale Anne Hurd revealed that fan backlash after the premiere caused the creators to "tone down" the violence in the later episodes of the season.
"We were able to look at the feedback on the level of violence," Hurd said. "We did tone it down for episodes we were still filming for later on in the season."
It's unclear if any of the episodes in the first half of the season were toned down, although it would go a long way to explain why all of the episodes seemed spread too thin with extended runtimes that didn't add anything to the "stories" being told. Did the producers cut any action scenes from those episodes to appease fans? It's much more likely that the episodes she's referring to haven't aired yet, as the second half of the season was still filming back in October.
Of course, there were other notably violent moments throughout the first half of the season beyond the infamous Negan scene, such as the ironing scene at the Sanctuary and Spencer's death in the midseason finale. Yet, Hurd's revelation could explain why I rolled my eyes every single time Negan came to town. The villain made big promises and constantly reminded us that he was a really bad dude, yet didn't quite go as far as his reputation suggested. Was Negan neutered in the editing room?
Either way, Hurd wants to let fans who were appalled by the premiere - which saw Glenn and Abraham bludgeoned to death while all of their friends watched in horror - that "This is not a show that is torture porn." Hurd said that in the future the producers will make sure “we don’t cross that line.”
