AMC Announces New Female-Led Walking Dead Spinoff

You’d think after 10 years and more episodes than we can count that The Walking Dead universe would be on the wane. Not so.

AMC’s flagship series just wrapped up its ninth season, while sister show Fear The Walking Dead continues to impress as well, as it’s currently gearing up for its fifth run. And according to the franchise’s chief content officer, Scott Gimple, 2020 is “gonna be bananas” for TWD.

Already we know that there’s a Rick Grimes movie trilogy coming down the pipeline, and today, AMC has announced that a new spinoff show has been given the green light which will aim to expand the universe of The Walking Dead. It’ll be headed up by Gimple and TWD writer and producer Matt Negrete, who’ll also act as showrunner for this new project.

Story details remain thin on the ground, but apparently, it’ll be a female-led series, which will “feature two young female protagonists and focus on the first generation to come-of-age in the apocalypse as we know it. Some will become heroes. Some will become villains. In the end, all of them will be changed forever. Grown-up and cemented in their identities, both good and bad.”

For more, here’s the official word from the network:

“We’re thrilled that the ‘Dead’ will keep walking into a new corner of the post-apocalyptic world, a corner that will present stories and characters unlike any that ‘The Walking Dead’ has dramatized thus far, and that is bound to excite one of the most passionate fanbases in television,” said David Madden, president of programming for AMC Networks and AMC Studios.

“Showing audiences an unseen pocket of ‘The Walking Dead’ Universe steeped in a new mythology is a very cool way to celebrate a ‘Decade of the Dead’ on TV and over fifteen years of Robert Kirkman’s brilliant comic,” said Gimple.

Beyond that, we don’t know much else about what to expect from this new series, nor when it may arrive, but it’s plain to see that even now, more than nine years after The Walking Dead first flickered onto our screens, the franchise is still in great health – even despite some worrying ratings. Which is just as well, too, seeing as season 10 is already in production ahead of its premiere this October.