The Walking Dead producer on how production will change post-coronavirus

The Walking Dead producer and special effects artist Greg Nicotero has weighed in on the huge impact that the coronavirus will have on filming the zombie drama going forward. The virus has had a huge impact on our lives. Rules and restrictions are changing all of the time, meaning the learning curve seems to never flatten. People in the movie and TV industries are adjusting, too, as they try to figure a way to get back onto set. Obviously, maintaining social distancing on a crowded, chaotic film set would be difficult. That’s what Nicotero is trying to puzzle through talking to Entertainment Weekly.

“It’s going to be very interesting in terms of seeing how productions work and how things that we are so accustomed to doing on sets will change, and will change pretty dramatically,” he said. “The number of people you have on set will probably diminish, which might mean it will take a little bit longer, where instead of having 60 people on set you may have 35 or 40 people on set.”

Nicotero says that the industry is developing fixes. “I know the industry is working towards some sort of industry-wide guideline in terms of are we going to do box lunches and nobody takes a break and you shoot for 10 hours and that’s it. No one’s really going to know, so it’s going to be a unique situation and definitely a brand-new world.”

Could that mean that we’ll be seeing fewer zombie extras in scenes, and perhaps more CGI Walkers? We’ll have to wait and see.

As we already know, production on The Walking Dead was shut down as they were working on the season 10 finale, which is delayed to an unspecified point in the future, which is unfortunate when you consider that it ended on a cliffhanger.

We’ve already had some of the cast and crew tease the episode, and Nicotero is eager to give us his two cents. “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.”

Elsewhere, speaking to SyFy Wire, Nicotero gave a little preview of where development on the upcoming Rick Grimes movies are at. “From what I understand from Mr. Gimple, the script is well underway,” he said. “I’ve looked at a couple of early drafts, but I haven’t seen anything lately, but from what I understand they’re digging away at it. One thing about this kind of situation is people that work at home… you know, writers… they’re able to take advantage of this time, and it’s a good time.”

"I have a feeling that when people push the play button again, there’s going to be a lot of material that’s going to be ready to go, because everyone’s getting scripts, and getting stuff just right to the point where they can get it ready before you start shooting. I think there’s going to be a lot of busy people, hopefully… hopefully in a few weeks?"

Hopefully. We’ll keep our ears to the ground for word of a release date for the season 10 finale!

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