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‘The Walking Dead’ At Universal Studios Is About To Premiere [Video]

By Nick Younker
Published on: 11:44 PST, May 18, 2016

The Walking Dead is about to make its grand opening at Universal Studios in Hollywood this summer. Although the permanent attraction has been teased for months now, it has been given an official release date and that coincides with the Great American Birthday.

The Walking Dead has officially been announced to premiere at Universal Studios on July 4 this year, just in time for the big theme park rush, according to Entertainment Weekly.

It really says a lot about the power of a television show that is only six seasons old to make a permanent premiere at a theme park like Universal Studios. The Walking Dead has long been the biggest show on television for at least the last three years now. The show gained so much attention from the American public that it already spawned a spinoff show, Fear The Walking Dead, which is in its second season on AMC.

But to have The Walking Dead at Universal Studios proves that horror and zombie culture is just as alive today as it was in 1969 when Night of the Living Dead scared the pants of audiences around the world. There is also good reason to believe that the zombies of Night, which were created by zombie maestro George Romero, have been the biggest influence on the way they are portrayed on The Walking Dead.

Universal Studios has been teasing The Walking Dead attraction now for quite some time. The zombie, or “walker,” craze has been insurmountable in the media over the past year, and there has been so many post-apocalyptic TV shows, movies, books, and comics that popped up in the last seven years that they are hard to keep up with anymore.

The Walking Dead was previously a part of Universal Studios’ annual event, Halloween Horror Nights. But now that the show has gotten so much attention and the demand for it is so big, Universal Studios has given it permanent residency at its theme park.

The recent casting call that went out for The Walking Dead was actually for roles to play in this attraction. Fans of The Walking Dead who wanted to be cast as a walker had to come out and audition for the part at Universal Studios by getting into makeup and walking around the park as a zombie.

This was something that The Walking Dead producer and special effects guru Greg Nicotero was intimately involved with. Not only will The Walking Dead attraction have live actors playing the walkers, but there are also going to be animatronic walkers featured.

“For me, something that’s very exciting is being able to make the attraction as 100 percent authentic as possible,” Nicotero told EW. “We’re getting a chance to do animatronic characters that we’ve never done before. We’re getting a chance to utilize molds that were created specifically for the show, and translate them into parts of the attraction. It’s one-of-a-kind, state-of-the-art. I can’t wait.”

The Walking Dead will be featured at the entrance of the park and will also be right next to other new attraction that fans around the world had been waiting for, The Wizarding World of Harry Potter. Of course, that opened back in April this year.

Universal Studios will now be part of a much bigger world, even more so in October when Season 7 of The Walking Dead premieres on AMC. That’s going to be about the same time that the entire world shuts down for an hour to see just who Negan killed when he swung that baseball bat at the end of Season 6.

Fans of The Walking Dead can get their fix by visiting the new Walking Dead attraction this summer at Universal Studios.

[Image via AMC]

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