The Walking Dead: Greg Nicotero Weighs In On Upcoming Threats

With the season premiere of The Walking Dead, the production team hit a record for the number of walkers on set at the same time. Executive producer and VFX guru Greg Nicotero said there was actually 1,300 walkers on set at one point.

Don't expect a herd that massive any time soon.

"I would say that we wrapped up a bit of that walker story from the first half of the season in the mid-season premiere," says Nicotero. "The sole purpose of that walker horde was to bring realization to Rick, that in order for society to survive they have to fight together. So when they all go out in the streets and they all start fighting the walkers, they become one unit. And then you see that giant big longshot along all the dead bodies on the road and up until the infirmary… I think it's pretty safe to say that the walker herd story line has been vanquished for the time being."

We don't need to see walkers in bulk as we did in episodes 6x01 through 6x09. At some point, the threat would have to start to diminish and just become a reason to be careful in the woods. Seeing a walker would probably become similar to seeing a bear at some point and it feels like we're there.

"It does allow us to catch our breath now and look at the potential other threats that are out there," Nicotero went on. "We spent a lot of time this season showing how big the world was. In the first episode, I used a lot of aerial shots to show the quarry and to show, like, it's not just a bunch of people running around in the woods - you can see a lot of the landscape from the sky. So visually we are showing that the world is big and that there's threats out there. And now in the second half of the season, those threats are going to become more focused."

Those threats being Negan and the Saviors. Negan's name was dropped a dozen times in last Sunday's Knots Untie episode and Rick and the gang are wasting no time in their pursuit of taking him down.

The Walking Dead airs Sundays at 9 PM ET on AMC.

(source: Melty)