The Walking Dead bosses pen emotional letter to cast and crew

With the show finally ending, the creator and showrunner of The Walking Dead pen an emotional letter to the cast and crew. Big emotions ahead:

After a decade on our screens, The Walking Dead is finally coming to an end following its eleventh season in 2022. The flagship series first aired on AMC in 2010, growing into the most successful zombie TV franchise in the world. With the huge news of its ending, both AMC chief content officer Scott M. Gimple and showrunner Angela Kang wrote a touching letter of thanks to the cast and crew.

Just because the main show is ending doesn’t mean the franchise is dead. In fact, AMC is giving us two new spinoffs: one will follow Carol (Melissa McBride) and Daryl (Norman Reedus), and the other will be an anthology series titled Tales of The Walking Dead. And that’s on top of the spinoffs we already knew about, including Fear the Walking Dead, World Beyond and the Rick Grimes movies.

Still, The Walking Dead was always the show that held the franchise together, and it’ll be missed, both by fans at home and by those who worked on it. ComicBook.com obtained a copy of the goodbye letter Gimple and Kang wrote to over 300 cast and crew members. Warning: it’s emotional.

"We can’t believe the end is upon us, however far away it is. This crew, this cast, these writer/producers and producers are the show. You are this show’s immediate future of 30 astounding episodes to fulfill our epic story and you will be among those who seal its legacy in entertainment history.We have reached millions around the world, and we will continue to reach millions more. There’s a lot of work ahead of us, a lot of opportunities to be there for each other, to bring out each other’s best, to bring our show to new heights of excellence."

They go on to highlight how the show has gone beyond just being a TV series and become a consistent part of people’s lives:

"We’re lucky to have an audience that has stuck by us over ten years of massive change in the world. We hope to have been a point of stability in people’s lives — something they could count on every week (or as part of a late summer binge) to make them feel — happy, heartbroken, intrigued, scared, excited, inspired. Maybe a little grossed out. Maybe considering things about their own life. Maybe considering who they are. People will need those feelings again. And that stability again. And we can give that to them with this epic final season, the last chapter of a multi-year saga of people figuring out how to live in a broken world.There is hard work, good times, and amazing moments ahead. The only way we can climb this mountain of episodes is how we’ve always done it: together. Let’s begin the long road to the end, standing side by side, in solidarity to do some awesome stuff with all the people who got us here, for all the people who got us here."

They conclude the letter with, “As ever, we are The Walking Dead,” a reference to the famous line said by Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) back in season 5.

As the letter said, we’ve got 30 (actually 31) episodes to go before it all ends. This includes the upcoming season 10 finale, six additional episodes in January of next year, and the extended 24-episode season 11.

Interestingly, the letter mentions the possibility of “other possible TWD series/expressions” that could be on the way beyond Tales of The Walking Dead and the Daryl/Carol spinoff. Are yet more spinoffs coming?

Sneak peak at The Walking Dead: World Beyond

Right after the season 10 finale airs on October 4, we’ll get to watch the series premiere of The Walking Dead: World Beyond, a brand new limited miniseries focusing on a group of kids who came of age during the zombie apocalypse. Take a look behind-the-scenes with this clip:

As ever, we are The Walking Dead fans.

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