The Walking Dead Movies Will Be Different From the Shows

The Walking Dead movies starring Andrew Lincoln‘s Rick Grimes will be different from the television side of TWD Universe, according to chief content officer Scott Gimple. The former showrunner did not clarify how the still-untitled movie — the first in a planned trilogy — might differ from the mothership series now airing its tenth season on AMC, but the goal, Gimple says, is to justify the existence of a Walking Dead Universe with diverse offerings that are “as different from one another as possible.” This first film, penned by Gimple, promises to be distinguishable from The Walking Dead, spinoff Fear the Walking Dead and the untitled third series headed to the network in early 2020.

“We have to take risks. That’s serving the audience, if you’re taking risks,” Gimple told Marketplace. “Are we pushing harder, are we trying to make these shows as different from one another as possible? Are we trying to make these movies different from the shows? Are we offering the audience the very reason to have a universe, which is a varied slate of stories?”

Pollyanna McIntosh, so far the only Walking Dead star confirmed to return alongside Lincoln, recently hinted the movie will be a twisty action-adventure that showcases never-before-seen walkers.

The Jadis-slash-Anne actress also teased an exploration of “other worlds” in TWD Universe after Gimple confirmed the film franchise would unravel the “vast mythology” behind CRM, the shadowy organization responsible for Rick’s disappearance midway through The Walking Dead Season 9.

Because these films will be released into theaters via distributor Universal Pictures, Gimple says the films must stand alone and appeal to a broader audience.

“This is for everyone. We have to honor the fans of the show, absolutely, but I don’t think that’s mutually exclusive to letting other people in,” Gimple previously told The Hollywood Reporter. “And if this is the very first Walking Dead thing they’ve ever seen, they’ll enjoy it. They’ll be like, ‘Whoa, that was a crazy zombie movie. Is there other Walking Dead stuff? I think I’ve heard that before.’ I mean, that is the idea. I think [George A.] Romero did that. I think we’ve set up things for an amazing story that people will get a certain satisfaction from, having had the relationship a long time to the story.”

Gimple also drew a comparison with the Hugh Jackman-starring Logan, a spinoff that mostly stood on its own despite ties to the X-Men universe.

“I think of Logan a lot. Logan is a movie that, if you grew up on X-Men comics and the cartoons and the wonderful canned pastas, when you saw Logan, you got this extra thing out of it. But if you’ve never seen or read an X-Men thing in your life and you just stumbled onto Logan, I think that movie stands on its own,” he said. “We need this movie to stand on its own. And I would be unbelievably grateful if we create something that maybe even young people stumble onto, who have never watched an episode of The Walking Dead, and then they have this giant library that they can go home and consume, and hopefully have a great time with. But yeah, this is a movie that’s gonna be for everybody.”

A release date for The Walking Dead movie has yet to be announced.

New episodes of The Walking Dead Season 10 premiere Sundays at 9/8c on AMC. For more TWD intel, follow the author @CameronBonomolo on Twitter.