Andrew Lincoln may be done on ‘The Walking Dead’ series but he will return as Rick Grimes in a series of films for AMC…
Andrew Lincoln’s final appearance as Rick Grimes on ‘The Walking Dead’ TV series aired on Sunday night but that will be far from the last time he appears as the character he’s made famous for the past nine seasons.
Just after the latest episode of ‘The Walking Dead’ aired, executive producer Scott M. Gimple announced that AMC is developing several feature length films that will continue the story of Rick Grimes with production on the first movie expected to start in early 2019.
Lincoln will remain in the role of Rick Grimes for these films that will air on AMC Network but will be treated as full length features just like anything seen in theaters. Those films will continue Rick’s story after he was rescued by Jadis/Anne at the end of the latest episode of ‘The Walking Dead’ and taken to a new community far away from the people he left behind who believe he’s dead.
“We have a lot on the horizon – starting with a new epic featuring one of the greatest leading actors in television history and one of the best people I’ve ever met,” Gimple said about the films he’s making with Lincoln. “These films are going to be big evolutions of what we’ve been doing on the show, with the scope and scale of features. We’re starting with the first part of the continuing story of Rick Grimes, and there is much more on the way, featuring yet-unseen worlds of ‘The Walking Dead’ and faces from the show’s past, as well as new characters we hope to become favorites, told by TWD veterans and emerging voices.
“We want to break new ground with different, distinct stories, all part of the same world that’s captured our imagination for nearly a decade of the Dead.”
There are reportedly at least three feature films already planned with Lincoln returning as Rick Grimes with more projects already in the works from Gimple and company.
During his appearance on ‘Talking Dead’ on Sunday night, Gimple hinted that there could be future features that would potentially tell the backstory of some of the characters on the main series or even delve into the history of characters who are long since dead. He added that there are plans in place for extensive digital features and there may even be room for more ‘Walking Dead’ spinoff television series similar to what unfolded with ‘Fear the Walking Dead’.
“We’re going to see the past, we’re going to see old characters. We’re going to move into the future with new characters,” Gimple told Entertainment Weekly. “We’re doing films, we’re doing specials. We’re going to be looking at new series. And even just different expressions of series — not necessarily 16 episodes. We might be doing some mini-series. We’re looking at different ways to tell stories. It’s very important that these be distinct from the other two shows or they really won’t be worth doing. We want to answer questions that the audience had all along. We want to see just different parts of the world. We really want to expand out the breadth of what The Walking Dead can be.”
As of now, the plans are for a trilogy of ‘The Walking Dead’ movies that will continue to tell the story of Rick Grimes with Gimple hard at work on writing the first one currently.
There’s no exact timetable when those movies will debut but Gimple says they won’t shoot in Atlanta where the current series is in production. A big part of Lincoln’s exit from the show was spending nine months a year away from his family in England so it’s safe to say shooting these films over a two or three month period no matter where they take place will be a much easier workload for the British actor.
From the sound of things, there will be a ton more content from ‘The Walking Dead’ over the next few years with the main series and ‘Fear the Walking Dead’ still continuing on as well.
Stay tuned for more information about ‘The Walking Dead’ movies as they get closer to production start dates in the near future.
