The Walking Dead universe has been going through mixed fortunes of late – with reviewers and viewing numbers for the main show having improved a little over last season’s worrying lows but with some major losses to the established cast. The ‘mothership’ show has lost the likes of mainstays Andrew Lincoln (who played Rick), Chandler Riggs (who played Carl) and Lauren Cohan (who played Maggie). Danai Gureria (who plays Michonne and has had major success with Black Panther and penned an acclaimed Broadway play, Eclipsed) has announced a reduced role for the tenth series before her own departure.
On the other hand, AMC has been talkative about plans to expand the screen-universe of the post-apocalyptic world. In 2015 Fear the Walking Dead began with a different set of characters and was set in an earlier time-frame. In subsequent seasons that spin-off has played around with its timeline as much as the main show and at least some of the action is now happening closer together. With Lincoln’s departure AMC also confirmed that Rick would be the subject of several tv movies that look at Rick’s fate after he was believed lost to his friends at the end of Season Eight. Lauren Cohan (currently in comedy-action series Whiskey Cavalier) has also said she might be open to appearing in other Walking Dead tv movies, though nothing has been formally agreed.
Now AMC Networks has confirmed (during their quarterly earnings call with Wall Street analysts) that in addition to any tv movies, there will also be a third Walking Dead universe television series, though they are not revealing any details regarding casting or where/when it fits into the established world.
“We’re not at a stage where we’ll be announcing its plans to premiere,” AMC‘s COO Ed Carroll said. “But we have hired creative people that have pitched story outlines. We feel very good about the development of that series. We’re not in a position to talk about partnerships in terms of other territories or ancillary windows, other than that there’s a healthy appetite for it and we’ve had a number of conversations with a lot of players in the space.”
