The Walking Dead: Dead City Renewed for Season 2

Maggie and Negan will be back on the mean streets of Manhattan in a New York minute. The Walking Dead: Dead City has been renewed for a second season at AMC, the network announced during its Walking Dead Universe San Diego Comic-Con panel on Friday. The Walking Dead spin-off premiered its six-episode first season on June 18th and follows enemies Maggie (Lauren Cohan) and Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) into post-apocalyptic New York City. Dead City delivered streaming service AMC+ the #1 season premiere in its three-year history in terms of viewership across all new and returning series, including The Walking Dead, with viewership on AMC and AMC+ growing with each successive week to date.

AMC also announced an early second season pickup forThe Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon, the upcoming spin-off starring Norman Reedus that premieres in September. 

“This next chapter in the Walking Dead Universe continues to thrive with a terrific inaugural season for Dead City and highly anticipated new journey for fan-favorite character Daryl Dixon coming in September,” said Dan McDermott, president of entertainment and AMC Studios for AMC Networks. “We can’t wait to bring Dead City fans back to the epicenter of Manhattan for more zip-lining action with Maggie and Negan. And, ahead of its debut, we’re thrilled to double down on Daryl as we bring the apocalypse to France, transforming Notre Dame, Pont du Gard and other iconic locales into an apocalyptic landscape unlike anything we’ve seen before.”

Alongside Cohan and Morgan reprising their roles from the since-ended flagship series, Dead City stars Logan Kim as Maggie and Glenn’s son, Hershel, Gaius Charles as New Babylon Marshal Perlie Armstrong, Mahina Napoleon as Ginny, Lisa Emery as the Dama, and Željko Ivanek as The Croat, a former Savior who establishes a new Sanctuary in NYC. The first season co-starred Karina Ortiz, Jonathan Higginbotham, and Michael Anthony as native New Yorkers whose tribe has been surviving in zombie-infested Manhattan since the U.S. military quarantined the island at the start of the outbreak in 2010. Cohan and Morgan also serve as executive producers along with showrunner and series creator Eli Jorné.

Dead City‘s premiere outperformed Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire, The Walking Dead: World Beyond, and Tales of the Walking Dead on AMC+, which launched in 2020. On cable, an on-air total of 1.12 million viewers tuned in to watch the first episode across airings on AMC, BBC America, and IFC. 449,000 of those viewers belong to AMC’s core demographic of adults 25-54, a figure that marked the best for any drama series debut on cable this year.

The fifth series in the Walking Dead Universe, Dead City picks up years after Maggie and Negan reached their uneasy detente in the original show’s series finale that aired last November. Maggie entrusted Negan with her son’s life, but told him she couldn’t forget or forgive him for killing Glenn (Steven Yeun) in The Walking Dead‘s infamous season 7 premiere. The dysfunctional duo will once again be lured back into New York for season 2.

The Dead City renewal comes ahead of the linear airing of the season 1 finale, “Doma Smo,” which was released early Thursday for AMC+ subscribers and premieres Sunday, July 23rd, on AMC. 

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