At first glance, it’s just another patch of grass and mud in the middle of a heavily forested slice of Georgia. But for the people who make The Walking Dead, it’s holy ground in more ways than one.
During an early May visit to the AMC zombie drama’s set in the expansive Raleigh Studios, located just outside of Atlanta, The Hollywood Reporter learned firsthand just how closely knit the world of the apocalypse truly is. Inhabiting 120 acres of land, the sprawling space plays host to most (but not all) of the iconic locations seen throughout AMC’s The Walking Dead, including the aforementioned woodland clearing — a roadside stop within the production space, and one that played host to one of the most harrowing, controversial and ultimately unforgettable scenes in the show’s history.
It’s the site where Glenn Rhee (Steven Yeun) and Abraham Ford (Michael Cudlitz) lost their heads and their lives during shooting of the season seven premiere, a double homicide that came after a monthslong cliffhanger about which member of Rick Grimes’ (Andrew Lincoln) group would end up on the receiving end of Lucille, the wicked Negan’s (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) barbed-wired baseball bat. Reports of that fateful evening are plentiful enough as it stands, with multiple versions of the brutal murder filmed in order to throw off spoilers. Ultimately, the cast and crew all knew the score: Yeun and Cudlitz had reached their last day on earth, at least as far as The Walking Dead was concerned, and it proved to be an incredibly emotional event for the individuals who are physically involved in the creation of the series.
See more at THR.
