Years after Rick Grimes left The Walking Dead with the helicopter people, AMC viewers will finally see his return to the zombie-bound universe. This wasn’t supposed to take so long, obviously, because ever since Andrew Lincoln left the show, we’ve heard about a movie trilogy, which would possibly arrived in theaters, but as everyone knows, the pandemic has changed everything. The landscape of entertainment has largely (even for movies) shifted to streaming with only a select number of projects motivating people to leave their home TV set up.
This isn’t the worst thing, really, because it’s provided for a wealth of content at our fingertips, and also, the Rick Grimes movie talk turned into a Rick Grimes TV show, co-starring Danai Gurira as Michonne. This was meant to be, perhaps, although we shouldn’t expect any Jesus walk-ins (RIP) in the future. During Tuesday’s AMC Television Critics Association presentation, the network announced (via The Hollywood Reporter) that this Rick-Michonne spinoff has a targeted arrival year: 2024.
That feels like a long time away, sure, but not so fast. In the interim, the Negan and Maggie spinoff (The Walking Dead: Dead City) will premiere in June 2023, and the Daryl show (The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon or as it should be known, Daryl Somehow Travels To France) will follow. And before those shows arrive, the eight season of Fear The Walking Dead will get started. That will also be the last FTWD season, and here’s more from Variety:
In addition, AMC also announced that the final season of the “Walking Dead” companion series would consist of 12 episodes that will roll out in two six-episode blocks. The first block will premiere May 14 at 9 p.m. ET/PT on AMC and AMC+. The second block will premiere later this year.
Eight seasons is quite a run. Sure, it’s not going to reach the eleven seasons of the flagship series, but the franchise is expanding elsewhere. Also, FTWD did hit its stride a few years ago and will certainly be more memorable to fans than The World Beyond.
(Via The Hollywood Reporter & Variety)