Scott M. Gimple reveals a few more details about the upcoming “Walking Dead’ movie starring Andrew Lincoln…
By Damon Martin — Editor/Lead Writer
“The Walking Dead” universe will expand again with a new film but details on the project have remained secretive ever since the first announcement was made.
The new film — which is currently slated to be a trilogy — will see Andrew Lincoln return to reprise his role as Rick Grimes, the protagonist in the original “Walking Dead” comics as well as the popular AMC series. Lincoln decided that he was spending far too much time away from his home and family in England while traveling to film the series in Atlanta so he ultimately decided to drop out of the long-running show.
Obviously, AMC wanted to continue doing business with Lincoln so a series of films are being developed with him as the leading star.
As of now, there is still no word on when these films will arrive because the script is still being refined and a director for the project hasn’t even been chosen yet. What “Walking Dead” chief content officer Scott M. Gimple can reveal is that the size and the scope of this movie will be a much bigger animal than what they’ve done on television for the past 10 seasons.
“The scale is bigger and the budget is bigger, and it’s The Walking Dead, but heightened, both in the narrative themes, but also in just what we see onscreen,” Gimple told EW. “I say heightened, but I should also say it’s also very different. It’s not going to be the exact same thing we saw on television, just larger. We are going in some wild new directions.
“Movies are a different beast than television. Television is like, boom, we’re done. Movies, to calibrate an hour and a half, two hours is no joke, and it’s been a lot of fun, but it’s a real challenge and we take it very seriously for the fans. We really want to deliver them something special, something worth their trip to the movies. We’re trying to be very deliberate and deliver something new.”
Gimple says that the new films will still be following Rick Grimes in the aftermath of his disappearance from the main “Walking Dead” series where his friends and family believed him to be dead. In reality, Rick was injured following an explosion and carried away on a helicopter to a mysterious new community, which has also been teased on “Fear the Walking Dead.”
“We are going to continue to tell Rick’s story, and we are going to discover so much of the world through that story,” Gimple stated. “Rick will be challenged in different ways that, in some ways, everything that he’s been through has sort of prepared him for.
“It’s a much larger world than one that he had been operating in, and that was challenging in and of itself. Now things are heightened, and just as we’re going to the movies — and it is the movies proper, suitably wide screen — we’re going to be filling that screen with a brand new world.”
While Lincoln is confirmed to return to his role, Gimple wouldn’t say if any other cast members from “The Walking Dead” would be appearing in the movie. Perhaps the name at the top of the list would be Danai Gurira aka Michonne, who is still appearing on the main “Walking Dead” series but her character will be leaving the show before the end of season 10.
Gimple says that he wants Michonne’s story to play out on “The Walking Dead” without teasing what happens to that character, which would obviously be ruined if he confirmed she was going to appear in the movie.
One more thing that Gimple did confirm, however, is that “The Walking Dead” movies will be theatrical releases rather than films that air on AMC, Netflix or another service.
“This is a theatrical film,” Gimple said. “Yes, there’s AMC, there’s Universal, there’s Skybound. There are a lot of parties working together to cook up something special.
“This is a movie that’s going to be watched in the movie theater. Eventually you won’t need a movie theater to see it, but more in line with how movies work.”
Stay tuned for more details on “The Walking Dead” movie as the film moves closer towards production at some point in 2020. As for “The Walking Dead” series, that show will wrap up the second half of season 10 starting on Sunday night, February 23.
