Walking Dead Pics, Hobbit Pics, Half Naked Christopher Meloni Pics. Just. Pics. [I read stuff]

Wherein I read things, laugh [or not], and pass them on to you…

• Ten More Behind the Scenes Photos of Hell on Wheels:

Anson Mount (Cullen Bohannon) in Episode 5
Wes Studi (Chief Many Horses) and Gerald Auger (Pawnee Killer) in Episode 6

• Geek Zodiak (hat tip ~ Laura!)

• Shirtless Christopher Meloni

• ‘The Walking Dead’: First look at the prison… and prison zombies! — EXCLUSIVE PHOTOS:

“I’m incredibly proud of the prison,” says showrunner Glen Mazzara. “I think our crew has done a great job. It’s a huge sense of scale and magnitude I haven’t seen on any other show as far as construction. What’s important to us is, the prison itself is now a character in the show. It’s a haunted house, it’s scary, it’s frightening, and there are parts of the prison that are always terrifying, that are always inaccessible to our group. It’s not necessarily the blessing that the prison in the comic book turned out to be.”

[insidetv/Dalton Ross/2 july 2012]

• The Walking Dead Bosses Dissect Season 2, Look Ahead to “Action-Packed” Season 3:

Say goodbye to the farm and hello to the gritty and dangerous prison!

That’s where viewers will find the survivors when The Walking Dead returns for Season 3. But don’t expect the prison to be a new stronghold for Rick (Andrew Lincoln) & Co. in the post-apocalyptic world in which the AMC series takes place. In fact, showrunner Glen Mazzara likens it to a haunted house. (Move over, American Horror Story!)

The prison isn’t the only new setting. In fact, the season will be divided between the prison and the town of Woodbury, where the newly introduced villain The Governor (David Morrissey) holds court. Could that be where the missing Merle Dixon (Michael Rooker) has been camped out all these months?

…Some people thought that all the time spent on the farm slowed down the season. What do you say to that?

Mazzara: I did not hear that criticism in the second half of the season. After Sophia (Madison Lintz) was found in the barn, I don’t think people felt that that was necessarily the case. I felt like we hit our stride as far as the storytelling pace. Sophia coming out of the barn brought everything to a full boil. I don’t think that will be an issue with Season 3. I guarantee people will say the show is moving too fast and it’s too packed. “There’s too much going on, I can’t take it, it’s too exciting!” Trust me, I know people are going to say that because we are really hitting the ground running and we expect the audience to keep up. The audience will not be ahead of The Walking Dead in Season 3. The audience will have to work hard to keep up because we have a very accelerated pace of storytelling.

[seattlepi/Natalie Abrams/1 july 2012]

• Ten New Stills From THE HOBBIT: AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY:

[Show as slideshow]

Ahead of the release of their latest issue, Entertainment Weekly have released ten new stills from Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, featuring our first look at many of the characters, including Andy Serkis as motion capture creation Gollum.

[comicbookmovie/Josh Wilding/2 july 2012]

• Dish Network drops AMC from service:

Satellite broadcaster Dish Network dropped the cable channel AMC from its service as a feud between the programmer and distributor showed no signs of being resolved.

The dispute means that AMC has lost access to about 14 million homes just weeks before one of its most high-profile original shows — the drama “Breaking Bad”– is set to return. Dish has also dropped other channels owned by AMC parent AMC Networks Inc. including IFC, Sundance and WE TV. The current contract between the two companies expired June 30.

Dish has said it dropped AMC because the price to carry the channel was going up too high. The company has also expressed concern about AMC shows, including “Mad Men” and “Breaking Bad,” being available on other services such as iTunes and Netflix soon after the shows have aired on AMC.
AMC disputes Dish’s reasons for dropping the channels and claims that the real reason has to do with a legal fight the two companies are engaged in. In 2008, AMC sued Dish for breach of contract regarding a distribution agreement.

[latimes/Joe Flint/01 Jul 2012]