Andrew Lincoln made his final appearance on The Walking Dead earlier on in season 9, but we haven’t seen the last of Rick Grimes. Though he won’t return to the TV series, Lincoln has signed up to star in at least three TV movies that’ll be coming to AMC in the near-ish future and will continue the story of Rick and explore what happened and where he went after we saw him last.
This news came as a wonderful surprise to TWD fans when it was first announced, but it also fulfilled something of a dream of Lincoln’s, we’ve now been told. Chandler Riggs – who played Rick’s son Carl on the show until the character was killed off in season 7 – revealed while attending San Jose Fan Fest that he and Lincoln often spoke about how cool it would be to do a Walking Dead movie.
“He’s been wanting to do movies for years. He was saying since Season Three or Four, he was like, ‘Dude, we should do a movie, it would be so cool to do a full-on movie in theaters.’ I was like, ‘That would be so sick, I’m super down,’ and it really became a thing. But for it to finally be announced and actually be confirmed, it’s super, super sick.”
The last time we saw Rick, he narrowly escaped death when he was found gravely injured by Anne/Jadis and flown away from his home in a helicopter, as part of Anne’s mysterious human trafficking system. We don’t know where he went next, but we do know that he never returned to Alexandria over the next six years, as the series has jumped forward in time to that point since Rick was written out.
TWD‘s Chief Creative Officer Scott M. Gimple is penning the script for the first film of the trilogy and has said it’s expected to go into production next year. We’ve also been teased that familiar faces such as Daryl or Michonne could feature in one of the films. Furthermore, it’s thought that the movies will stay in the U.S., rather than exploring different countries, though that remains to be seen.
For now, we can look forward to season 9 of The Walking Dead continuing in February on AMC.
