‘The Walking Dead’ Star Jeffrey Dean Morgan Says “Hell Yeah” to a Negan Movie
The Walking Dead star Jeffrey Dean Morgan hopes to explore his baseball bat-loving Negan in an [...]
The Walking Dead star Jeffrey Dean Morgan hopes to explore his baseball bat-loving Negan in an origin movie.
"Hell yeah," Morgan wrote on Twitter when asked if he'd be interested in portraying the character outside the mothership series.
In response to another inquiry, Morgan tweeted, "I think it's important to show how Negan became Negan. [The Walking Dead creator] Robert Kirkman already put pen to paper... so I think to flesh that story out? That's my hope. We shall see."
I think it’s important to show how negan became negan. @RobertKirkman already put pen to paper... so I think to flesh that story out? That’s my hope. We shall see.
— Jeffrey Dean Morgan (@JDMorgan) November 13, 2018
Kirkman fleshed out Negan's beginnings in 16-part prequel miniseries Here's Negan, which revealed the villain-turned-antihero's past as a crass high school gym coach who was unfaithful to beloved and terminally ill wife Lucille.
The series detailed Negan's first encounter with bowman Dwight and documented the beginning of the Saviors, the enemy group that would go on to menace and oppress Rick Grimes and his band of tight-knit survivors.
Morgan previously revealed he's lobbied for a Negan movie for two years, discussing the potential with Walking Dead chief content officer Scott Gimple.
"I certainly hope. I know that they've talked about doing all sorts of other things, movies and whatever else," Morgan told press during a Walking Dead Season Nine set visit. "I don't know too much about it. I know it could be an exciting opportunity to tell that story."
Gimple and producers AMC have since announced The Walking Dead Universe, to expand beyond The Walking Dead and spinoff Fear the Walking Dead through films, specials, series, and other digital content.
Rick Grimes star Andrew Lincoln, who exited the flagship series in its November 4th episode, will be reprising his role in a trilogy of AMC Studios-backed television movies, the first of which is set to explore Rick's whereabouts after he was rescued by Anne (Pollyanna McIntosh) aboard a helicopter headed to parts unknown.
Gimple, in announcing AMC's TWDU in a press release, teased films to emerge as "big evolutions" of the two television series that will boast "the scope and scale of features."
Following the three-movie Rick Grimes franchise, "there is much more on the way, featuring yet-unseen worlds of The Walking Dead and faces from the show's past, as well as new characters we hope to become favorites, told by TWD veterans and emerging voices," Gimple noted. "We want to break new ground with different, distinct stories, all part of the same world that's captured our imagination for nearly a decade of the Dead."
Speaking to FANDOM in April ahead of the release of Dwayne Johnson blockbuster Rampage, Morgan said he would be "more than happy" to see Negan pre-zombie apocalypse.
"I would like to take part in some filming of that. I think that would help explain this character a great deal," he said. "Because, unfortunately, the way things go with so many characters and storylines, we don't see enough — and I think that that is needed, especially when you have a character like Negan."
Negan continues to serve out a nearly eight-year solitary confinement sentence in The Walking Dead Season Nine, and has since become a sort-of Uncle Negan to Rick and Michonne's daughter, Judith Grimes (Cailey Fleming).
The Walking Dead airs Sundays at 9/8c on AMC. The network has yet to announce a premiere date for its first Walking Dead movie.
