Robert Kirkman wanted to kill Rick early in The Walking Dead: “It’ll be funny!”

When it comes to heartbreaking deaths, The Walking Dead has delivered some gut punches. There wasn’t a dry eye in the house when Carol told Lizzie to look at the flowers before having to make one of the hardest decisions of her life. We all were left stunned when Negan murdered Glenn and Abraham. And even though he could be a pain at times, watching Carl take his own life after being bitten by a walker so that Rick or Michonne wouldn’t be forced to make that call was absolutely crushing.

We felt the weight of these deaths, and they lingered for seasons as the surviving characters carried the ghosts with them. Perhaps that’s why it’s so shocking to know that Robert Kirkman, who wrote The Walking Dead comics, suggested killing off one of the show’s most iconic characters on the TV adaptation because he thought it would be “funny” to see people freak out.

Robert Kirkman thought it would be “funny” to kill Rick on The Walking Dead

During an Entertainment Weekly panel hosted at San Diego Comic-Con on July 22, The Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman shocked those in attendance when he admitted to nearly killing Rick Grimes off early in the show. But that wasn’t the most surprising part of the omission.

Kirkman’s interest in killing Rick wasn’t part of a grand storyline plan; he pitched it because he thought it would be funny to kill off such a popular character and see the fans freak out.

"With Walking Dead, I was much younger and much more reckless. I was an absolute lunatic. I would get in the writers’ room and be like, ‘Kill Rick Grimes today! I don’t care! It’ll be funny! People will freak out, and it’ll be fun!’ The writers were like, ‘Robert, you’re crazy. We can’t do that.’ But any time there were big changes in The Walking Dead, that’s what excited me."

Ironically, despite Kirkman’s desire to kill Rick off early in the show’s run, Rick was one of the lucky few original characters alive and well when the series came to an end, even if actor Andrew Lincoln had left the show a couple seasons back. Not only is Rick still alive in AMC’s Walking Dead universe, but he’s set to join actress Danai Gurira (Michonne) for a new series debuting in 2024: The Ones Who Live.

Kirkman did still get his wish in the end though, as he killed Rick off in the comics series that inspired the show. So I guess Kirkman got the last laugh after all.

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