ATLANTA • Production of The Walking Dead has been suspended after a stuntman fell more than 6m on a Georgia set.

The stuntman, who is in his 30s, is in intensive care in an Atlanta hospital after suffering a head injury on Wednesday, the Hollywood Reporter reported.

His girlfriend, who also does stunts, posted on Facebook that he "deserves to be seen by every neurosurgeon and doctor there is until one of them sees the life we all know he has in him and bring him back to us".

The hit zombie television show - set to return for its eighth season in October - has also been rocked on another front.

Its co-creator Frank Darabont and his agents are suing its network AMC over profit participation. They are seeking US$280 million (S$390 million).

Court documents revealed that Darabont, 58, nominated for a Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar for Shawshank Redemption (1994), had a feud with AMC in 2011.

He was then working on the second season of the show and its budget had been slashed by 25 per cent.

In one e-mail to its top executives, he wrote: "I deserve better than a heart attack because people are too stupid to read a script and understand the words. Does anybody disagree with me?"

In another e-mail, he said: "Everybody, especially our directors, better... pay attention. Or I will start killing people and throwing bodies out of the door."

The Variety trade publication noted an e-mail in which, upset by what he deemed unprofessional work, he complained that "seeing those dailies (footage) today (has) left me gobsmacked and thinking I should fake my own death, leave town and live under an assumed name".

AMC subsequently sacked Darabont.

Its lawyer attributed that move to "his failure to timely deliver scripts, failure to adequately supervise the writers' room and his volatile and disturbing interactions with staff and talent were impacting production".