“A very different Rick” is coming in The Walking Dead spinoff movies

AMC is making a bunch of Walking Dead movies all about Rick Grimes, with Andrew Lincoln back in the role. But things are going to be different.

We’re getting a whole lot more of The Walking Dead in the coming years. Not only is there season 11 of the main show to look forward to, but there’s also Fear the Walking Dead season 6 and the all-new spin-off World Beyond, which focuses on the next generation of survivors.

One of the more mysterious of the upcoming Walking Dead projects is the planned trilogy of movies featuring Andrew Lincoln as Rick Grimes. You’ll recall that he left the show in season 9, taken to parts unknown by people unknown.

AMC appear to be taking their time with these movies. Perhaps they need to reach a specific point in the show before they can share more details in order to avoid potential spoilers, and of course, the coronavirus pandemic hasn’t help speed production.

But there have been hints here and there. Speaking to Comicbook.com, AMC Chief Content Officer and former Walking Dead showrunner Scott Gimple shed some light on what’s happening.

“We have this extra time now, we have to have it,” Gimple said, talking about the coronavirus slowdown. “So much of what we’ve been doing is honing and tweaking and experimenting and we’re just in the lab with it. And we’ve been playing around a lot. We were doing that before and now it’s forced upon us.”

"We don’t know when we would be doing it if everything was finished right now, we just don’t know, but we’re still in the lab. We’re still goofing around with it. We’re still playing around with it."

We know that Andrew Lincoln will return to play Rick, and according to Gimple, the actor is “super involved” in the movies. “He throws around the football with the rest of us. He’s very, very invested in this thing.”

A big question about these movies is how accessible to newcomers they’ll be. Do you have to be familiar with the Walking Dead universe to get what’s going on? The answer, as expected, is a coy yes and no. “We have to honor people who have invested the time in their lives in the show,” Gimple said said.

"But we can’t do that at the expense of inviting everybody. I think those things can work together… Rick has a history and the history will be present within him and it’ll be a big part of who he is. But it’s likely going to be a very different Rick that we see as well."

And finally, for those worried that the movies might not happen at all given the state of the industry, Pollyanna McIntosh (Jadis) has some reassurances for you. She told the Talk Dead to Me podcast that the films will happen, although they’re not the top priority at AMC at the moment. “The films I know will happen,” she said. “A series is probably a lot more at the forefront of their priorities right now.”

The Walking Dead is set to return for its long-anticipated season 10 finale October 4!

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