The Walking Dead EP Says The Movies Are Still Headed To Theaters

The Walking Dead movie trilogy is still headed to theaters despite the uncertainty surrounding the future of the film industry.

Andrew Lincoln bowed out of the TV series back in 2018 in order to lead his own big screen spinoffs as Rick Grimes, but things haven’t gone as smooth as originally intended. Partially that’s because of COVID-19 slowing plans down. One way the pandemic hasn’t affected things, though, is that the pics are still intended to end up in cinemas.

TWD chief content officer Scott M. Gimple, who’s also writing the first film, confirmed this while speaking with The Hollywood Reporter. First of all, he gave an update on where the movie’s at right now. He explained that everyone’s busy trying to make it happen, touching on why it’s taking a lot longer to put together than a season of the show.

“We’re very much continuing forward. I’m working on it with Mr. Lincoln and [Walking Dead co-creator Robert Kirkman]. We have a whole bunch of people cranking away on it,” Gimple said. “It’s a movie. Movies are different. Movies go through a very different process than television. I’m confident at the end of the day, it’s going to be something special.”

Gimple was then quizzed over how the current state of theaters has impacted his plans, to which he stressed that he doesn’t think it has. “Not at all, but it certainly goes through my head that this is all about seeing [the film] at the movies,” he confirmed. He continued by discussing how he sees the TWD pics being part of a resurgence of projects appearing on the big screen over the next 12 months or so, saying:

“Independent of anything we’re doing, I’m just pulling for the industry. We’re about to go through a very tough time,” he said. “But as we move toward the spring, we’re talking about things potentially getting better in a permanent way. I would hope that come the end of next summer, people are piling into movie theaters again and laughing until they’re screaming together, eating popcorn together, and that we are once more enjoying each other’s company in front of a huge screen with awesome things happening on it. We hope to be a part of it.”

Rick was last seen being taken away from Virginia in a helicopter by Anne/Jadis, on behalf of the mysterious Civic Republic Military. We’ve learned a little more about the CRM over on The Walking Dead: World Beyond, while TWD season 10 revealed that Rick returns to watch over Michonne and Judith at some point during the six-year time jump. But we’re still waiting on the movies to tell the whole story.

At this point, however, we don’t know when the first one could be released. What we can say, though, is that The Walking Dead will return to AMC for new episodes in February.