‘The Walking Dead’ Star Offers New Rick Grimes Movie Details

Pollyanna McIntosh, who starred as Jadis-slash-Anne on The Walking Dead before absconding with a gravely injured Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) in a helicopter midway through Season Nine, says “things are in process” on the trilogy of Rick-led television movies being overseen by chief content officer Scott Gimple.

Appearing at Fan Fest San Jose over the weekend, McIntosh said she can “be very clear in assuming” her involvement in the movies after admitting in November she knew little about the closely guarded project.

“We’re going to see where Rick is, so she would be there,” McIntosh said, adding she hopes to be involved. “Things are in process right now, it’s exciting. I’m not ready to leave her behind yet.”

McIntosh noted last month she’s yet to see a script, but the actress appears to have some idea of where the story is headed, saying at Fan Fest there will come “more of an understanding of the community that [the helicopter group] came from and that I’m going to with them.”

Gimple previously told EW Lincoln will not be returning to the television series and that Anne would be involved with at least the first movie in the planned trilogy as she was aboard the helicopter now being piloted to parts unknown.

The movie will detail the “vast mythology” behind the well-equipped helicopter group and will bring with it answers about the “A” and “B” classification, used on Rick, Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) and Father Gabriel (Seth Gilliam). That same group was responsible for the disappearance of the MIA Heath (Corey Hawkins), who was last seen in Season Seven episode “Swear.”

The mystery surrounding the helicopter community that ultimately took off with Rick — now believed dead for six years on The Walking Dead, where he’s mourned by brother Daryl (Norman Reedus), lover Michonne (Danai Gurira), and children Judith (Cailey Fleming) and R.J. (Antony Azor) — is a plot that has been quietly unfolding for years, mapped out by Gimple as a means of writing out Lincoln without killing off Rick Grimes.

“He was a little secretive, even with [the writers’ room], about what it was. He did let me in on some of it at some point last year,” showrunner Angela Kang told THR.

“We went into this season with a pretty good knowledge about the intention behind the helicopter and where it would lead.”

It leads to that first Rick Grimes movie, now being eyed for a 2019 production start.

“I am extremely hard at work on the first one right now, and most likely filming next year, though I’m freaking out about deadlines right now, so I’m not going to tell you exactly when because it will only make me pass out,” Gimple told EW.

Gimple added the movies would come “sooner than later,” noting the films would not be made on “television schedules.”

“This is going to be on feature schedules, and they’re going to be big, so they’re going to take a minute to make,” he said.

The Walking Dead returns with its back half of Season Nine Sunday, February 10 on AMC.