The Walking Dead: spin-offs and movies in the future of zombie franchise that just won’t die
- The popular zombie series starring Norman Reedus and Melissa McBride finishes in 2022, but it’s not that easy to kill
- Franchise head Scott Gimple and producer Angela Kang talk about their plans for movies and an anthology show
The Walking Dead will soon be dead. AMC’s flagship series, or as franchise head Scott Gimple puts it, “Walking Dead Classic”, will end in 2022 after an epic 24-episode final season spread over two years. That’s a bold move by the network when it comes to the most watched show in cable history.
Of course, when did death ever stop anything in this franchise?
“That part’s decided by AMC,” said Gimple when asked about the decision to give the series, which premiered in 2010, a Viking funeral, planned to coincide with the end of its comic-book source material.
But Gimple said there were also creative advantages to letting it go. “Years ago, before my last year showrunning, I had gone to AMC with this whole notion of opening up the Walking Dead world.
“That’s what led to this position [as chief content officer] and then the movies and then The Walking Dead: The World Beyond, Tales of the Walking Dead … We knew there would be another show within “Walking Dead Classic”, and Daryl and Carol came out of that with discussions between Angela and I,” he said.
Daryl and Carol or The Daryl and Carol Show – which he said sounds like an undead variety hour – are Gimple’s puckish names for the as-yet untitled spin-off starring current main cast members Norman Reedus and Melissa McBride.
The Walking Dead producer Angela Kang, who will run the spin-off, said: “There’s many layers of approvals and things, but it’s meant to be a little lighter. Not in a way that feels frivolous, but I think like all of us are looking to have fun in that world.
I’m excited to see the franchise grow in another direction, although it’s a really bittersweet time. I’ve spent the past decade working on the flagship show and I love these characters and I love this world and I love these stories
“It’s a road show – I hope I can say that – and so I think it will feel distinct. It’s definitely something that Norman and Melissa and I and Scott have all talked about.”
The possibility of the characters going nomad again makes sense considering not only the arcs they’ve taken in the show but also the final arc of the comics.
The “Commonwealth” storyline moves past some of the survivors’ basic needs – not getting eaten by zombies or cannibals, or being enslaved – and involves complex questions about what makes a just society. It’s easy to imagine Daryl and Carol uncomfortable in a world shaped by the compromises that would entail.
“I think Daryl, the lone wolf, we’ve always thought, ‘That guy just rides off into the sunset at some point.’ Carol is kind of the same person,” said Kang.
“The ‘Commonwealth’ story really touches on things I think are very relevant about class and about society. [Comic creator] Robert Kirkman really tapped into something that I think a lot of us are thinking about,” she said.
“Obviously we’ve had to pivot to these other episodes that are part of the sort of season 10 continuation bloc, and then for season 11 there’s just these stories with themes that are meaningful to all of us.”
“We’re being so, so safe about how we’re doing everything, and you know our normal show has, like, hundreds of extras and massive scope,” Kang said of the production restrictions imposed to prevent the spread of Covid-19.
Kang had mixed emotions about the end of the original Walking Dead. “I’m excited to see the franchise grow in another direction, although it’s a really bittersweet time. I’ve spent the past decade working on the flagship show and I love these characters and I love this world and I love these stories,” she said. “I just hope we can do justice to the story we’ve been telling.”
Gimple appears to relish one of the foremost challenges that comes with the franchise’s expansion: giving each title a distinct identity.
As enthusiastic as he is about more imminent pathways for the franchise, Gimple is most excited when he talks about Tales of the Walking Dead, a proposed anthology show that has not yet been given the green light.
“The very charge of that show is being different … stories that we just couldn’t tell on any of the other shows. And to be different from each other, week to week. Some weeks, abject horror. Some weeks, black comedy. Different time periods in the apocalypse. Different kinds of characters. Some episodes that have one character and maybe a lot of dead people,” he said.
“And then there will be sprinklings of things that we are familiar with: characters that we’ve lost on the show and their past, seeing how they wound up in the situations [in which] they wound up, or the people that they wound up [as].”
When it comes to the planned movies, though, Gimple carefully tempered his comments. He confirmed that multiple theatrical releases are planned, to “tell a story that continues”, and said if not for the coronavirus pandemic, they’d have a much firmer idea when any of this would take place.
“I would say this: movies take a long time. It’s been a cool process. Andy [Lincoln, who plays Rick Grimes in The Walking Dead] has been deeply, deeply involved in it. Robert [Kirkman] is deeply involved in it. It’s slowly but surely coming together in a really, really cool way. But movies take longer than TV … I probably should have told everybody that.”
