Andrew Lincoln may have exited The Walking Dead last night but he will continue to live on in The Walking Dead universe.
Despite being seemingly fatally impaled on last night’s episode, Lincoln and the Rick Grimes character have a future with the franchise. A series of AMC Studios original films, starring Lincoln and written by Chief Content Officer Scott M. Gimple, are planned to continue the story of Rick Grimes, with the first expected to begin production as early as 2019.
The Rick Grimes movies are among the first projects in development from Gimple as part of a multi-year plan for The Walking Dead Universe, which also includes other projects currently in the works: additional films, specials, series, digital content and more. According to Gimple, some of the stories will relate to The Walking Dead as fans know it while others will be standalone stories that break into a new creative territory.
Expanding The Walking Dead universe seems to be a plan that was long in the making. Starting with a The Walking Dead and spinoff Fear The Walking Dead crossover bridged by Lennie James’ Morgan this year, AMC has made it very clear they see a larger Walking Dead world coming. In September, AMC CEO Josh Sapan told an investors’ conference that “we have a plan to manage it over the next decade plus …a very careful plan.” With that mandate, to shepherd “potential brand extensions on a variety of platforms,” former Walking Dead showrunner Gimple was named Chief Content Officer for the brand back on January 13.
In Lincoln’s final appearance on last night’s episode, written by Matthew Negrate and Gimple, the character of Rick Grimes is mortally wounded and last seen being flown away by helicopter to an unknown destination. The first film will explore the story of where Rick is taken and what he faces in a new corner of the zombie apocalypse.
