Shudder's Creepshow Nearly Had Walking Dead and Breaking Bad Cameos

Throughout his astonishing career, Creepshow showrunner Greg Nicotero has worked with and befriended countless top-tier actors, many of which he reached out to with the opportunity to appear in the new series, which includes The Walking Dead's Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Norman Reedus and Breaking Bad's Aaron Paul. Sadly, those appearances never came together, nor did a reunion of original Creepshow stars, but with the Shudder series confirming that it was a major hit for the streaming service, Nicotero isn't ruling out finding an opportunity for those performers to appear in Season Two, if the network renews the series.

"I had asked [original star] Tom [Atkins] if he was interested in a part as well, but unfortunately he wasn't available," Nicotero shared with ComicBook.com. "Listen, the advantage of Creepshow was I literally called everybody that I knew. All my friends that I had worked with. I talked to Simon Pegg, I talked to Josh Brolin, I talked to Aaron Paul, I talked to all of them and they were all like, 'Aw man, I'm doing Avengers,' or, 'I'm doing this movie in the Philippines,' or, 'I'm doing this.' And I was like, 'I think you could get away for three days.' I was trying to convince them, 'Can't they just schedule around you?' Even Jeffery and Norman were like, 'Dude, why didn't you ask us to do something on Creepshow? We would've done it.' And I was like, 'Well, I felt strange asking people to do it,' but this was the one time when I kind of went, 'Okay.' So I called [Breaking Bad star] Giancarlo [Esposito] and he was like, 'I'm in,' and I called [Saw star] Tobin [Bell] and he was like, 'I'm in.'"

Not all of the people Nicotero reached out to turned him down, though not all of them realized what they were getting themselves into when they accepted the chance to have a "cameo" in the series.

"Dana Gould and Bruce Davison and all these people that I had worked with before that, all of a sudden, I was able to call in some favors," the producer recalled. "Jeffrey Combs was the funniest because I said, 'Hey, you want to come do a cameo?' And he showed up and he pulled me into my office and he said, 'You do know what a cameo is, right?' And I'm like, 'Yeah, you walk in, you walk out, and you do one scene.' And he's like, 'Good. Because you know this isn't a cameo. This is, like, the lead in the episode.' And I'm like, 'Well yeah, I know that. I just wanted to get you here. I knew you'd have fun once you did.' So I just thought it was funny. He's like, 'Do I have to explain to you what a cameo is?' I'm like, 'No, but you're here and I love you for being here.' And he had a blast."

Not only did this new series become a way to honor what Romero accomplished with his film, but also afforded Nicotero the opportunity to collaborate with a number of his most beloved peers.

"I really felt like, with David Arquette, who I'd known for a long time, you always dream of those opportunities where you work with somebody and you're like, 'Aw man, I can't wait for us to do something together,'" Nicotero shared. "And then we did. And I got a chance to do something with these people that I've been friends with. And so much of what makes Creepshow special for me is, between the writers and the directors and the actors, these are all people that I've wanted to work with for decades. For me to be able to call them and say, 'Okay, remember we've always talked about wanting to do something together? Now's our chance. Let's do it.' And bringing in [director] John Harrison and [director Tom] Savini and Esposito and [writer] David J. Schow and [writer] John Skipp, all of these guys who I've known for 20 years. That made me really, really happy that I could do what I had always wanted to do, which is work with my friends."

The season finale of Creepshow lands on Shudder on Thursday, October 31st.

Do you hope we got those cameos in the next season? Let us know in the comments below or hit up @TheWolfman on Twitter to talk all things horror and Star Wars!