The Walking Dead is about to go through some big changes. The upcoming Season 11 will be the finale of the core show, though the story will carry on in a number of spinoffs. One will follow Norman Reedus’ Daryl and Melissa McBride’s Carol, another will be an anthology series called Tales of the Walking Dead, and Fear the Walking Dead and The Walking Dead: World Beyond will continue. But one project fans are particularly hyped for is the feature film trilogy starring Andrew Lincoln’s Rick Grimes.
Other than the fact that they appear to take place in and around Philadelphia, we don’t know much about these movies. World Beyond is confirmed to be setting up the story, which will center on the Civic Republic Military (also set to play a big role in Season 11) that captured Rick and begin to shed light on what characters being designated ‘A’ or ‘B’ means, and fans have theorized that the pics could see a vaccine being developed for the walker pathogen.
The trilogy sounds like a key part of the over-arching story, so fans have begun to grumble about the news blackout. Now, franchise creator Robert Kirkman has apologized to fans during his Q&A at the virtual Comic-Con:
“I wish that there were more updates. There’s a lot going on behind the scenes. It’s entirely possible that there are some details that are coming out around Comic-Con that I just don’t know we’re allowed to talk about yet, so I’m being a good boy and I’m not gonna spoil anything. But I will say there’s exciting stuff happening behind the scenes and I am as frustrated as you guys are that we have not been able to reveal everything to you and talk about it nonstop.”
When pressed for a release date, his response indicated that they’re not happening anytime soon:
“I could throw out a funny date. I don’t know. It’s definitely going to be before 2032. I wish there were more updates.”
That’s going to be disappointing for fans wanting to catch up with Rick as it seems the earliest we could see these is 2023. By that point Andrew Lincoln might not have appeared in The Walking Dead for five years, so we may be approaching a time when AMC either cancel or reformat this as a limited three-episode TV series.
In a further disquieting development, The Walking Dead‘s resident gore expert Greg Nicotero discussed the trilogy during Comic-Con and hinted that they don’t even have the story finalized:
“I’ve read a variety of drafts of the scripts over the last few months. They’re really making sure that they get it right.”
Let’s hope they do.
Season 11 of The Walking Dead will premiere on AMC on August 22.
