The Walking Dead's Plans for 40 Straight Weeks of New Content Disrupted Due to Coronavirus

The Walking Dead midseason 10 premiere was to launch 40 weeks of uninterrupted Walking Dead programming set to air on AMC throughout the rest of 2020, but indefinite delays caused by the coronavirus pandemic has put The Walking Dead Universe on pause. The cabler first pushed back physical production on Season 11 by three to four weeks and put a month-long pause on filming of the sixth season of Fear the Walking Dead before delaying the series premiere of The Walking Dead: World Beyond and the Season 10 finale of The Walking Dead, which were to air back-to-back Sunday, April 12. COVID-19 made it impossible to finish the required post-production work needed to complete the Season 10 finale, now planned to air as a special episode sometime later this year.

The eight-episode half season of The Walking Dead Season 10 would have concluded April 12, leading into the ten-episode first season of World Beyond. The spinoff was to be followed by the 16-episode summer season of Fear starting in June, leading to the eight-episode front half of The Walking Dead Season 11 in October. For the first time, The Walking Dead Universe would have aired new episodes every Sunday throughout most of the year if all three shows continued unimpeded.

"Every day is like a year as far as information goes," Scott Gimple, TWD chief content officer, previously told The Hollywood Reporter. "Even the pause plan we had last week, we're just monitoring everything with the advice from government, and even stronger than advice in most cases, to make sure everyone is healthy and safe."

"Like everyone else, once we're given the all clear, we're ready to roar back. Just like with everybody else, it's this weird moment of pause," Gimple continued. "There are so many people who work on these shows. Between the three shows, we're talking about [numbering] in the thousands. We want everyone safe and healthy. That's the deal. We all have to pull together to make sure everyone is safe and healthy."

Work that can proceed remotely is continuing, including scripting on The Walking Dead Season 11.

"All the shows are in some degree or another of writing. Fear the Walking Dead didn't have a ton of writing left, but a good amount of it. We're cooking on [writing The Walking Dead] Season 11," Gimple said. "People were starting to peel off and write their scripts, and that's moving along. Post can work remotely to a degree. There's a good amount of work on all of the shows that needed to be done in rooms, and we're still doing that, just not together."

AMC has not yet announced dates for The Walking Dead Season 10 special episode, The Walking Dead: World Beyond premiere or the Fear the Walking Dead Season 6 premiere.

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