The Walking Dead Producer Wants to Adapt Rick Grimes’ Comic Book Death on the Show

The Walking Dead executive producer David Alpert still hopes to realize Rick Grimes‘ comic book death on television by remixing the shocker with another character.

“There’s a moment in #191 where it looks like there’s about to be another all out war between everybody about to break out, and I was like, ‘Oh my God, I can’t believe [creator Robert Kirkman is] about to do this.’ And then everyone goes, ‘Stop!’ And it just stops,” Alpert said at San Diego Comic-Con.

“And I felt that was actually a really interesting moment where the book had sort of changed and there was like, ‘Oh, no, we’ve actually moved past this storytelling bit.’”

In Kirkman’s recently ended comic book, a practical utopia known as the Commonwealth nearly erupts in civil war before esteemed leader Rick rallies its downtrodden citizens to usher in a new era of peace and civility. Rick is then assassinated by a dissenter ousted from his cushy position of power and in death becomes a legendary figure.

He’s later discovered by son Carl, who tearfully puts down his father’s zombified corpse with a single bullet to the head.

Even with Andrew Lincoln’s Rick away from the show and spun off into a separate theatrical movie trilogy, Alpert wants the shock cliffhanger adapted for television.

“I would love to see us get to that moment in the show where we could find a way to sort of do things a little differently, and then the smaller, silent moment at the end where Rick gets shot,” Alpert said.

“I would love to see some version of that now that Rick’s not in the show. How would we sort of adapt that moment for TV? That’s what I’m looking forward to.”

In the “Letter Hacks” column ending issue #192, where Rick succumbs to multiple gunshot wounds and dies, Kirkman said Rick’s death was not a reaction to the events of the live-action franchise.

“I don’t like addressing the TV show, simply because it has no bearing on this series. This series informs the show, not the other way around,” Kirkman wrote.

“But… we did lose Rick Grimes this year on the TV show as well, though he didn’t die. So I feel compelled to state for the record that the events of this issue were in no way a reaction to that.”

Lincoln next returns as Rick in the undated Walking Dead movie, to be theatrically distributed by Universal Pictures. The Walking Dead Season 10 premieres Sunday, October 6 on AMC.