It’s official: AMC is making a third scripted series set in its Walking Dead universe, according to Entertainment Weekly. This is on top of The Walking Dead, which has been running since 2010 and has been hemorrhaging viewers over the last couple seasons, and Fear the Walking Dead, which has never been that big of a draw. Still, someone must be clamoring for this…right?
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The new show, which I’m just gonna go ahead and guess will be called The Running Dead, “will feature two young female protagonists and focus on the first generation to come-of-age in the apocalypse as we know it. Some will become heroes. Some will become villains. In the end, all of them will be changed forever. Grown-up and cemented in their identities, both good and bad.”
Should there be dashes in “come-of-age”? Sorry, I’m editing AMC’s press release. Force of habit.
“Showing audiences an unseen pocket of The Walking Dead universe steeped in a new mythology is a very cool way to celebrate a ‘Decade of the Dead’ on TV and over 15 years of Robert Kirkman’s brilliant comic,” said former Walking Dead showrunner Scott M. Gimple; Gimple was recently promoted to over-czar for all Walking Dead content. “[Walking Dead writer] Matt Negrete is one of the best writer-producers in TWD’s long history — I’m thrilled to be working beside him to tell stories unlike we’ve seen before, taking our first step into an even larger world.”
Negrete, if you didn’t already guess, will be showrunner on this new series, and he’s just tickled about it:
"I’m beyond excited to be a part of this new show set in The Walking Dead Universe. Writing and producing for the original series has been the job of a lifetime and I’m honored to be working with Scott and all the fine Dead folks at AMC in this new capacity. I can’t wait for the fans of the franchise to see what we’ve been cooking up."
I’ll be honest: part of my instinctively recoils when I hear the phrase “The Walking Dead Universe.” I prefer the way HBO programming president Casey Bloys is approaching the follow-up to Game of Thrones; they’re making a prequel show, but just the one, and only after the original show is over. I just wonder if there’s really demand for a new Walking Dead series. If they’re making it, I assume they have access to some sort of metrics…
Maybe it’ll be great. I just hope they know what they’re doing.
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