AMC Says The Walking Dead Has Endless Stories To Tell

The Walking Dead screen franchise might be entering its eleventh year, but the post-apocalyptic universe is set to be expanded in exciting new ways in 2020. Not only are the parent series and spinoff Fear the Walking Dead going strong, but a third show titled The Walking Dead: World Beyond begins this spring. Plus, Andrew Lincoln is starring in the first of a planned trilogy of TWD movies.

And that’s far from the end of it, as AMC chief Sarah Barnett has discussed her high hopes for the future of TWD with The Los Angeles Times. Barnett promised that further spinoffs will not simply imitate what fans have already seen but push the creative boundaries in many ways. Overall, the exec believes there are “endless stories” to tell in this universe.

“We’re plotting a lot more ambition for this, and for us, the high bar is, I think there are endless stories to be told in this universe. There is a huge, un-snobby, high-taste-threshold fandom for this show that tell us they want to hear more stories. What we won’t do is make a weak version of The Walking Dead. We won’t imitate that. What we will do is look at a number of different formats and a number of different creative forms with a number of new and existing writers.”

The expansion of the franchise is being overseen by Scott Gimple, former showrunner of the flagship series and now chief content officer of the brand. Barnett’s comments follow on from Gimple’s recent revelation that he’s personally working on getting various TWD spinoffs off the ground, largely of the limited or miniseries variety, that would take many forms. Prequels, sequels, projects following familiar characters, projects following new characters. Whatever you can think of, Gimple’s probably already got it in the works.

The Walking Dead season 10 continues February 23rd. From then on, there will be an episode of the TWD universe on AMC virtually every Sunday for the rest of the year. So, you can start to see how Barnett is so confident that there are endless stories to tell in this franchise.