‘The Walking Dead’ Movies and More TV Shows in Development

The Walking Dead may be fulfilling its promise of being a “never-ending” zombie drama, with major expansions on the horizon.

AMC, the network which brought Robert Kirkman’s comic series to live-action in life in 2010, is reportedly talking with some studios and producers about developing more forms of the zombie series. The title has already spawned a weekly Talking Dead recap show and spinoff series in the form of Fear the Walking Dead but is looking to go bigger in the future. It’s no surprise, considering last week AMC CEO Josh Sapan promised another decade of the Dead universe.

“The company, which owns the popular zombie-apocalypse series, plans to produce multiple movies and new TV shows based on the graphic novels that spawned the series, according to people familiar with the plans,” Bloomberg is reporting. “AMC has talked to several large media companies about partnering on the projects, which collectively could cost several hundred million dollars.”

With Rick Grimes actor Andrew Lincoln’s exit on the horizon, whispers behind-the-scenes indicate potential for the actor to return to the franchise for a film in the future. Such a move would allow the British actor to spend more months at home with his family, as desired, but keep his post-apocalyptic leader around to drive ticket sales and ratings.

With AMC looking to retain complete ownership over the Dead properties, the network faces a dilemma in bringing the franchise to big screen life.

“Ownership of that content — call it Walking Dead, Fear the Walking Dead — allows us to determine the fate of that content, so we can navigate as we choose,” Sapan said at Goldman Sachs Communicopia Conference.

Recently, the network pulled off a shift of former The Walking Dead showrunner Scott Gimple to a chief content officer role, overseeing the entire Dead universe and potential expansions. It’s a move possibly indicating Gimple will serve the Dead universe in a capacity similar to Kevin Feige to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. As the zombie world expands to the big screen and possibly further across the small screen, the chief content officer will be burdened with connecting all of the dots and titles.

“If we manage it properly it has a long life, which is not to say it will always look like a TV series,” Sapan said.

Fear the Walking Dead airs Sundays at 9 p.m. ET on AMC. The Walking Dead returns for its ninth season on Oct. 7, 2018. For more updates and insider info all year long, follow @BrandonDavisBD on Twitter!