The Walking Dead showrunner Angela Kang reveals an update on the untitled Daryl & Carol spin-off she co-created with TWD Universe chief Scott Gimple, confirming there is a plan to transition Daryl Dixon (Norman Reedus) and Carol Peletier (Melissa McBride) into the sequel series premiering in 2023. Announced by AMC Networks alongside the expanded two-year Final Season of The Walking Dead last September, the fourth series in the Walking Dead Universe is a lighter-toned road show. Kang, a franchise veteran since Season 2 of the mothership show in 2011, will showrun the new series at the other end of a bridge built out of the upcoming Season 11 of The Walking Dead.
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“I think so. We’ve definitely talked about how we think we land them and where they kind of tip-off to,” Kang said on the Deadline podcast when asked if creatives have devised a transition from one show to the next. “We have pitched out what we think is the pilot, and it’s all in development, which is on its own schedule.”
Kang added: “Things are still in the process of being broken by beats and written and all of that, but we at least have a plan which hopefully will work out.”
Kang is co-writing the pilot with Gimple, her predecessor as Walking Dead showrunner, who was the first to reveal the Daryl & Carol spin-off would be distinctive from the zombie drama Reedus and McBride have starred in since its first season in 2010.
“With Daryl & Carol, I can’t say too much about it, but I will say it’s going to be very different from The Walking Dead, going to have a different tone,” Gimple told The Los Angeles Times in October. The franchise architect added the spin-off would have “a different mission churning under it” and that there would be “characters all around Carol and Daryl.”
After a dark and brutal sendoff season of The Walking Dead, returning August 22 on AMC, the stripped-down spin-off is intended to be “a little lighter.”
“Not in a way that feels frivolous, but I think like all of us are looking to have fun in that world,” Kang told The Los Angeles Times. “It’s a road show — I hope I can say that — and so I think it will feel distinct. It’s definitely something that Norman and Melissa and I and Scott have all talked about, what we crave tonally.”
The 24-episode Final Season of The Walking Dead will air in three parts through 2022. The untitled Daryl & Carol spin-off is expected to premiere in 2023 on AMC. Follow the author @CameronBonomolo on Twitter for all things TWD.