The Walking Dead: Dead City Writers Revealed for Maggie/Negan Spinoff

Maggie and Negan's story ended on The Walking Dead with an apology and a truce. Years after going their separate ways, enemies-turned-allies Maggie (Lauren Cohan) and Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) reunite to take Manhattan in The Walking Dead: Dead City, premiering on AMC and AMC+ in June. Set in post-apocalyptic New York City, the dysfunctional duo hit the streets of the Big Apple to hunt for a notorious killer. Along the way, they'll encounter the city's dead and denizens who have made New York City their own world full of anarchy, danger, beauty, and terror — including marshal Perlie Armstrong (Grey's Anatomy's Gaius Charles) and an enigmatic figure known only as The Croat (Damages' Željko Ivanek). 

Showrunner Eli Jorné, a writer and co-executive producer on The Walking Dead for multiple seasons, created Dead City (previously titled Isle of the Dead) as part of an overall deal with AMC Studios. Jorné wrote four of the first six episodes, according to Writers Guild of America West records, including the pilot and season finale.

Along with "What It Always Is," a Negan-centric episode of The Walking Dead Season 10, Jorné scripted the episodes "Walk With Us" (with co-writer Nicole Mirante-Matthews) and "A Certain Doom" (with co-writers Corey Reed & Jim Barnes). Outside of AMC's TWD Universe, Jorné previously served as a writer and executive producer on the Starz wrestling drama Heels. His credits include episodes of the Netflix comedy Huge in France, FX black comedy Wilfred, the Quibi sex-doll comedy series Dummy, and the live-action/animated sitcom Son of Zorn, which he co-created for FOX.

Keith Staskiewicz, whose credits include the kung fu animated series Three Delivery and an unproduced suspense drama pilot for Freeform titled Close Up, penned episode 103. Staskiewicz serves as executive story editor on Dead City and as co-producer on The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon, according to the WGA.

Episode 105 is from co-executive producer and writer Brenna Kouf, a writer and story editor on four seasons of NBC supernatural police procedural Grimm. Kouf's credits as a writer include the Netflix neo-noir thriller series What/If and the Christian Serratos-starring Selena: The Series.

"Eli has created a chaotic, beautiful, grimy madhouse of the dead for Negan, Maggie, and fans of the show eager to discover an unseen and insane world of the TWD Universe," Scott M. Gimple, executive producer and TWDU chief content officer, said when AMC announced the spinoff last March. "Lauren and Jeffrey have always been fantastic collaborators and now, we bring that collaboration to the next level with a series that will take these characters to their limits with the world — and each other. All of us are thrilled to take you on an all new, all different TWD epic for the ages."

Alongside Jorné and Gimple, Cohan and Morgan serve as executive producers with Brian Bockrath (Fear the Walking Dead, The Walking Dead: World Beyond). The cast includes Lauren Cohan as Maggie, Jeffrey Dean Morgan as Negan, Gauis Charles as Perlie Armstrong, Jonathan Higginbotham as Tommaso, Mahina Napoleon as Ginny, and Željko Ivanek as The Croat. 

TWD: Dead City premieres in June on AMC and AMC+. Stay tuned to ComicBook/TWD and follow @NewsOfTheDead for more TWD Universe coverage.

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