Though Rick Grimes was whisked away from Alexandria in a helicopter last fall, Andrew Lincoln has remained committed to The Walking Dead franchise. Not only is he due to lead his own movie trilogy, but the actor also promised that he’d return to the set of the show to direct an episode of season 10.
“I’m going back to shadow a director, and my intention is to direct next year,” Lincoln revealed a year ago. He did so, too, as he worked with director Michael E. Satrazemis on season 9, episode 12 “Guardians.” However, it seems the star will have to put his filmmaking aspirations on hold for the moment as it’s been announced he won’t be directing for season 10, after all.
Entertainment Weekly broke the news, citing that “schedules could not be aligned.” They did confirm, however, that another ex-star of the series will be helming an episode instead. Michael Cudlitz played Abraham Ford from season 5-7 before he made his comeback behind the scenes in season 9 to helm episode 7 “Stradivarius.” Now, he’ll also direct an unknown episode of season 10.
On the bright side, Lincoln’s scheduling conflicts probably mean he’s busy with the first of those spinoff films we mentioned. We don’t currently know a whole lot about them, other than that they’ll explore wherever Anne took Rick to after we last saw him. Pollyanna McIntosh is naturally expected to feature in them and there’s also a good chance that Danai Gurira will appear as Michonne, following her own exit from the parent show at some point this season.
Look out for more news on both Lincoln’s movies and The Walking Dead‘s tenth season from the TWD Comic-Con panel later today, which is scheduled for 1:00pm in Hall H. Season 10, meanwhile, airs on AMC from Sunday, October 6th onward.
