According to Variety, AMC is not resting on the laurels of its hit show Mad Men or the recently announced Prisoner mini-series and instead is ramping up production on new shows, starting with a huge undertaking in an adaptation of Robert Kirkman’s The Walking Dead — produced and directed by Frank Darabont. According to the article, the network is close to finalizing the deal with Darabont to write and direct a series adaptation of Kirkman’s comic. Gale Anne Hurd and David Alpert are also involved in the project as producers.

In the article, Joel Stillerman, AMC’s senior VP of programming, said the project appealed to them because of “the quality of the storytelling” in Kirkman’s work. The series will stay faithful to the tone of the original novels, he said. “This is not about zombies popping out of closets,” Stillerman said. “This is a story about survival, and the dynamics of what happens when a group is forced to survive under these circumstances. The world (in ‘The Walking Dead’) is portrayed in a smart, sophisticated way.”

In case you’re not familiar with the story of The Walking Dead, it concerns a group of survivors of a zombie apocalypse led by a police officer, Rick Grimes. The rag-tag group travels through the devastated waste that once was America in search of a safe place to call home. Along they way they face numerous obstacles, danger, attack, betrayal and death not only from zombies, but from other survivors turned savage and ruthless now that civilization has collapsed.

If this deal comes through and we do eventually see The Walking Dead brought to life by Frank Darabont, I could not be more pleased about it. As a fan of both The Walking Dead comics and Darabont as a writer/director — especially due to The Shawshank Redemption and The Mist — I can’t imagine a better combination. I’m going to be following this one very closely for sure.