The Walking Dead universe’s expansion might be leading to prequel-like adventures which bring back characters fans are missing since their deaths or exits from the TV shows. The Walking Dead‘s chief content officer Scott Gimple opened up about possibilities for more expansion in the future, which currently includes three shows with The Walking Dead: World Beyond set to launch later this year, and admitted that he has ambitious plans to bring back characters fans love but have not been seeing on the shows, anymore.
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“We’re working on a big push of something I was working on originally and then I got much more focused on the shows in my first year on this job and developing World Beyond and getting the movie going,” Gimple told EW. “We really do want to come out with different TV formats, meaning shorter things, and then some event series, limited event series.”
Those special events in The Walking Dead universe might be taking closer looks at time we didn’t spend with characters we grew to love. “I’m trying to get together a number of different things that we can show at different times during the year, and this focuses on characters we miss and we lost,” Gimple explained. “It focuses on aspects of that new mythology. It focuses on stories that occur in our universe and have nothing to do with anything. Nothing to do with the shows or the movies, that are just these little zombie tales that happen in our world with our rules and our timeline but are just really great zombie stories, really great stories of the end of the world. I’ve been working on that with a variety of people, and that’s actually proving to be super fun and interesting.”
More specifically, Gimple was asked if these events might fill-in backstories for characters which were left open-ended. “That’s exactly what we’re doing,” he said. “I mean, it isn’t the only thing we’re doing. It’s not like everything is like Gotham, but that’s one of the sort of three kind of categories that we’re tackling. It’s awesome. It’s awesome to be able to play with characters that we’ve lost, and it’s awesome to fill in some of the blanks.”
While there is clearly plans for new characters and stories, as well, the notion of spending time with Glenn Rhee in the early days of the apocalypse, Abraham Ford‘s time spent in Texas, or Negan’s days spent with his dying wife as the world fell apart is the most exciting bit teased by Gimple in a long time.
Which characters from The Walking Dead world would you like to spend more time with or learn about their early days? Share your thoughts in the comment section or send them my way on Instagram and Twitter.
The Walking Dead returns for the rest of its tenth season on February 23.
