Back in September, it was announced that AMC’s hit zombie dramaThe Walking Deadwould conclude in 2022 with an extra-long 11th season. According to Jeffrey Dean Morgan, the actor who portraysthe nefarious Negan, this may not have always been the plan.
During an interview with Collider, Morgan said that the news of the series’ conclusion was “a complete surprise, not only to me and the rest of the actors but to everybody involved in the show from production. [Walking Deadfranchise boss] Scott Gimple and [showrunner] Angela Kang had no idea, either.” WhileThe Walking Deadmight not have been officially canceled, season 11 clearly wasn’t supposed to be the show’s last.
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While he acknowledged that the feeling of finality hasn’t quite set in yet, as they still have a lot of shooting left to go forThe Walking Dead’s final season, Morgan said that working on season 11 and knowing there won’t be a season 12 is “f*cking surreal as hell.” He said that the new season feels a lot bigger than the others, and that “there’s so much story and it’s very grand in scale,” although he’s only been sent four of the season’s scripts so far. He said that, in this first batch of scripts, the ongoing narrative has “no reference and no feeling… that it’s ending at all. It’s opening up all of these new chapters that are really interesting and cool.”
This season will mark the end of the flagship series, but it won’t mark the end ofThe Walking Deadfranchise altogether. Aspin-off revolving around Daryl and Carolwill begin airing in 2023, and there are a bunch of other movies and TV series in development. The show’s existing spin-offs,Fear the Walking DeadandThe Walking Dead: World Beyond, both have new episodes on the way. Andrew Lincoln is signed on to star in a trilogy of movies chronicling Rick Grimes’ adventures after he was impaled on a steel beam and taken away by a helicopter.
The Walking Deadwas once the highest-rated show on TV, but the season 7 premiere “The Day Will Come When You Won’t Be” – which marked Morgan’s first full appearance as Negan beyond cameo-level teases – began a steady decline in ratings that may have led to this possible cancelation. While Morgan’s performance has always been praised, that episode took the gore a step too far for many viewers, particularly inGlenn’s gruesome death scene– which was accurate to the comics, but came off as way more disturbing in live-action as opposed to a black-and-white drawing.
Season 11 ofThe Walking Deadis set to consist of 24 episodes, as opposed to the standard 16, which has been the show’s regular episode count since the third season back in 2012. The final season will begin airing later this year and eventually wrap up its run (and the entire series run) in 2022.
The Walking Deadairs on Sundays as 9/8 on AMC.
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