Are you ready for more
The Walking Dead? We hope so, because AMC is serving up a third spinoff series set in the zombie-infested, post-apocalyptic world originally created by Robert Kirkman.
Production on the new series, which is being produced and distributed by AMC Studios, will begin this summer in Virginia. The show has been greenlit for 10 episodes and will premiere on AMC in 2020.
The spinoff will center on two young female protagonists and
“focus on the first generation to come-of-age in the apocalypse as we know it,” AMC teased.
“Some will become heroes. Some will become villains. In the end, all of them will be changed forever, grown-up and cemented in their identities, both good and bad.”
Matt Negrete, who has written and produced for
The Walking Dead for the past five seasons, was named Showrunner of the original series, which is being co-created by Scott M. Gimple, Chief Content Officer of
The Walking Dead universe.
“I’m beyond excited to be a part of this new show set in The Walking Dead Universe,” said Negrete.
“Writing and producing for the original series has been the job of a lifetime and I’m honored to be working with Scott and all the fine Dead folks at AMC in this new capacity. I can’t wait for the fans of the franchise to see what we’ve been cooking up!”
“Showing audiences an unseen pocket of The Walking Dead Universe steeped in a new mythology is a very cool way to celebrate a ‘Decade of the Dead’ on TV and over fifteen years of Robert Kirkman’s brilliant comic,” added Gimple.
“Matt Negrete is one of the best writer-producers in TWD’s long history — I’m thrilled to be working beside him to tell stories unlike we’ve seen before, taking our first step into an even larger world.”
The announcement of a third series may come as a bit of a surprise, especially as the latest season of
The Walking Dead has declined in ratings. However, Sarah Barnett, AMC Networks’ President of Entertainment Networks,
justified that the decline was more simply mirroring that of the declines across basic cable.
“Our decline has really mirrored the declines across basic cable — we just had higher to fall from. The fact that we are still the No. 1 show by a margin of two to one is quite something. One of the things that I take such encouragement from is the fact that our ratings are pretty stabilized. We did see declines at the beginning of [Season 9], but through all of the back half of this season, we are seeing the kind of stability that we’ve never really seen in this property before. We believe that we’ve hit a core, and that if that core sits around the numbers it is, it will continue to be a complete phenomenon in cable TV in 2019.”
It's possible that AMC execs are also hoping that the focus on two younger female protagonists will help the show appeal to a new type of audience. Barnett
noted that some of the young female characters in the flagship series "have resonated" strongly with audiences, though she declined to elaborate.
In any case, we'll likely hear more about this latest spinoff in
The Walking Dead universe in the months ahead as production kicks off. Are you excited about another series?