Fans of The Walking Dead were shocked last month when AMC announced that the season 10 finale of the series would not air as expected and would instead arrive later in the year. The post-production process for episode 10.16 was unable to be completed before the coronavirus pandemic, so the season had to be cut short. In a new interview, series executive producer (and director of the episode) Greg Nicotero opened up about the sheer amount of work that goes into completing these episodes like sound mix, music mix, color-timing, and quality check, noting that they were very close to finishing the episode before all the work was upended.
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“We were right on the cusp of just about finishing the episode when everybody had to stop work,” Nicotero told Den of Geek. “And it’s not like you can do a lot of that stuff remotely. I looked at all the visual effects stuff that was coming in when we were shooting because there was a lot of VFX for the finale, and everything looked magnificent. It’s just a matter of waiting until we can basically mix all the ingredients. I don’t know when that’s going to be. But I think once people get a chance to go back to work, it’s probably a week and a half or two weeks of fine-tuning.”
Nicotero went on to talk about how proud he is of the episode and can’t wait for people to see the finish product, but for the time being it’s unclear when it will air. AMC previously announced that the episode would premiere as a “special” in-between seasons 10 and 11 of the series, but no further details have been announced since then.
The Emmy winning effects wizard also spoke about how the writers for the series are already working on the next season with the intention being to complete the scripts in bulk and then start shooting the new episodes fast once they’re able, saying: “I think the plan is to try to get as far as we can on the scripts, so once we hit the ground running in production, a lot of the challenges and a lot of the hiccups will have already been refined and ready to go.”
Though previously set for an October premiere later this year, season 11 of the series may not meet its expected premiere date. Furthermore, the larger world of The Walking Dead is also on hold as spin-off series The Walking Dead: World Beyond has been delayed as well, with the first episode originally set to premiere ten days ago.
