'The Walking Dead' season 7 return date, news, spoilers: Executive producers deny toning down the show's graphic violence

Two executive producers of "The Walking Dead" denied that they turned down the level of violence portrayed on the show. However, another says otherwise. Meanwhile, Norman Reedus, who plays Daryl, shared that his character is ready to make the kill.

When season 7 of "The Walking Dead" premiered with Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) beating Glenn (Steven Yeun) and Abraham (Michael Cudlitz) with his deadly bat, Lucille, it raised concerns among fans that the show has become too violent.

Executive producer Gale Anne Hurd addressed this issue at the National Association of Television Executives conference in Miami, saying that they acknowledged the feedback on their show and that they toned the violence down for upcoming episodes that they are still filming, Variety reports.

However, according to co-executive producers Scott M. Gimple and Greg Nicotero, they did not change their approaches in the episodes that followed the season 7 premiere.

Entertainment Weekly reports that Gimple said: "The violence in the premiere was pronounced for a reason. ... I would never say that that's the baseline amount of violence that we would show on the show. If we're ever going to see something that pronounced, there needs to be a specific narrative purpose for it."

On the other hand, "I don't think we'll ever pull ourselves back. There is definitely a difference between violence against walkers and human on human violence, but truthfully, we're serving our story," Nicotero pointed out.

Meanwhile, when season 7 returns this February, Reedus' Daryl will be ready to take on all of the Saviors in the upcoming rebellion.

Reedus shared that Darryl wants payback for all the things that Negan and his Saviors put him through and that he's already on "kill mode."

Reedus explained that his character took the death of Glenn and Abraham very personally and that he spent his time in the hole blaming himself and thinking that he deserved the abuse that he got from Negan.

"Now he's ready to get revenge. He's ready to go kill everybody," Reedus added.

"The Walking Dead" season 7 returns on Sunday, Feb. 12, on AMC.