The Walking Dead pays actors to do fewer convention appearances says star Michael Cudlitz. After debuting on AMC in 2010, the zombie drama based on the comic book series by Robert Kirkman and Tony Moore quickly became a pop culture sensation and a ratings giant. None of which prevented the show from saying goodbye to original showrunner Frank Darabont, a move that would lead to massive legal headaches later on.
Now over ten years on from the auspicious Darabont-led first season of The Walking Dead, the show has become somewhat less of a juggernaut both in terms of ratings and pop culture conversation, but it nevertheless remains one of the most popular shows on cable TV. Indeed, TWD shows no signs of stopping as a content universe as multiple spinoffs are in the works, alongside the two spinoffs that are already on the air. It was even recently revealed that The Walking Dead may soon branch into the world of comedy with a spinoff that takes a deliberately humorous look at the world after the zombie apocalypse.
Of course given its stature as a major genre show with a rabid fanbase, TWD is a huge draw at conventions, as are its many well-known cast members. In fact there was a time when Walking Dead cast members were doing too many conventions, leading to AMC implementing an interesting policy. In a recent appearance on the podcast Inside of You with Michael Rosenbaum, former star Cudlitz (who played Abraham on the show until that character was brutally murdered by Negan) revealed that the network actually pays actors more money if they agree to curtail their convention schedules. As the actor explained (via Uproxx):
“You got a little more each episode to not do X number of conventions...because some people were doing them every weekend and it was interfering with the work schedule. It wasn’t like the top people — Norman [Reedus] wasn’t doing that. His [convention appearances] were spaced out, because they took a lot out of him because he was a huge convention draw. It took a toll on him physically just doing that. But there were some people who were doing quite a bit.”
Conventions are of course a big source of extra income for actors and other creatives associated with various movies and shows, and it sounds like certain unnamed members of the Walking Dead cast at one time were trying to partake as much as possible of this added revenue stream, to the point where it actually became detrimental to their main job of being actors on The Walking Dead.
This story raises an interesting issue about the role of conventions in maintaining fandom, and how that circuit can actually become important for people whose careers perhaps are not in the same place as someone like Norman Reedus (who obviously commands a huge salary and doesn’t need to do conventions if he doesn’t want to). Indeed it becomes a bit of a joke, and a sad one at that, when an actor associated with an older horror or sci-fi movie makes their living doing convention appearances into their old age. It’s sort of amusing that certain The Walking Dead cast members tried to milk the convention circuit as much as possible while the show was still at the height of its popularity, forcing the network to financially reward them for saying no to conventions and yes to being ready to work on the very show that made them famous in the first place. It would be interesting to know if any actors ever chose to keep their convention appearances flowing rather than take the extra money from AMC.
Source: Inside of You with Michael Rosenbaum/YouTube (via Uproxx)