The Walking Dead producer explains season 10 finale delay

When the COVID-19 pandemic sent the world indoors, AMC’s The Walking Dead franchise took a hit. Because of the way each episode is completed in post-production, the season 10 finale, “A Certain Doom,” was placed on the backburner until stay at home restrictions could be lifted.

“When you’re in post-production, it kind of goes like this,” Walking Dead producer Greg Nicotero explained to Entertainment Weekly Live. “You have to edit the episode, then you do sound effects, and then you do music, and then visual effects, and then color timing to make sure all the colors in all the scenes match, and then you have to do a quality check to make sure nothing is messed up. So there are all these steps that have to happen, and generally speaking, the way our production schedule works is those happen up to about three weeks before the episode airs.”

"So we were really on our way to the finish line when things started slowing down because of the stay at home work order. So we just missed that window. It wasn’t that the effects were delayed or anything was delayed. It was just the delivery of the episode was set to be delivered at a specific date and we had to shut down before they hit that date."

And for that, Walking Dead fans are left in limbo to see how the war ends between our favorite survivors and the Whisperers.

Nicotero directed the season 10 finale, so he knows of what he speaks. “It’s a really amazing episode,” he said. I love the way episode 15 ends where you see Beta bringing the herd to the tower where everybody is holed up. There’s a lot teed up, so to speak.”

Hopefully, we’ll get to see season 10’s final episode sooner rather than later. In fact, it seems like there’s light at the end of the tunnel, at least according to AMC’s Chief Operating Officer Ed Carroll, who spoke about The Walking Dead spinoffs Fear The Walking Dead and The Walking Dead: World Beyond in an earnings call on Tuesday.

“We have made some adjustments, moved the Killing Eve premiere up a couple of weeks and, you’re probably aware, moved Walking Dead: World Beyond back into the fourth quarter,” he said. “We’re finishing post on that, that will be set to go.”

As for Fear the Walking Dead, Carroll said that season 6 is looking at a debut in the second half of the year.

AND there’s The Walking Dead season 11 to consider. “Writers rooms are open and we will monitor week-to-week, if not day-to-day production schedules,” Carroll said. So writers are writing, but filming is another matter — the show usually begins shooting in the summer, but it’s hard to know if Hollywood will be ready to go back to work by then. “We don’t have any information now.”

Surely AMC wants the franchise to pick back up sooner rather than later. On the same earnings call, AMC CEO Josh Sapan talked about the network taking a 30% hit in ad revenue. “Beginning in mid-March, the company experienced adverse advertising sales impacts and suspended content production, which has led to delays in the creation and availability of some of its television programming.” At this point, AMC is working “week to week and day-to-day” with its sponsors to keep things moving.

"We are working very closely with our partners. I think the network has been as flexible as it can be to cultivate those good relationships. The result has been that much of what [ad dollars] moved away from the second quarter we have been able to keep in the second half."

For now, AMC is holding off on making any big moves in its upfront ad marketing, which gives buyers a chance to reevaluate how much money they can spend. “We have to get further along in the conversations we are having.”

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h/t Deadline, New York Post