‘The Walking Dead’ might be losing a major character because Lauren Cohan has booked a new show and doesn’t have a contract beyond season 8….
‘The Walking Dead’ might be losing one of their lead actors.
Lauren Cohan — who has played Maggie Green on ‘The Walking Dead’ since season 2 — has just booked a new pilot for ABC and that may spell the end of her time on the hit zombie series from AMC.
The story goes like this — Cohan’s current contract with ‘The Walking Dead’ only runs through season 8, which is currently airing on AMC. Cohan and her representatives had been in contact with AMC to work on a new deal with rumors swirling that she was looking for a pay increase to bring her a little closer to her male co-stars Andrew Lincoln and Norman Reedus, who are the highest paid actors on the show.
Now from various reports it doesn’t appear Cohan was asking for the same pay as Lincoln and Reedus but perhaps a little more equality in the pay structure on ‘The Walking Dead’. Sadly no deal was ever reached and that allowed Cohan to begin shopping her services to other potential suitors and now she has signed on for an upcoming pilot titled ‘Whiskey Cavalier’, which is a one-hour comedy-drama co-starring Scott Foley that is in the works at ABC.
Of course, Cohan signing on for a pilot doesn’t mean the series will get picked up by ABC but it certainly puts the pressure on ‘The Walking Dead’ to make a major decision coming soon. If Cohan books this new series and it’s picked up by ABC, she could leave ‘The Walking Dead’ entirely because her contract is already up. Based on shooting schedules, Cohan could also hypothetically do the new show on ABC and still pop up on ‘The Walking Dead’ in a recurring capacity.
The third option would be Cohan reaches an overall agreement with ‘The Walking Dead’ on a new deal and she sticks around as a series regular.
Right now it’s far too early to tell what will happen, but it’s clear Cohan is at least prepared to move on with her career and move past ‘The Walking Dead’. Considering how much of a vital role Cohan plays on the series — and the fact that ‘The Walking Dead’ is one of the biggest shows on television — it stands to reason that she probably should be making closer to what her male counterparts on the series are raking in.
