Jeffrey Dean Morgan Reveals How Long Negan Was Supposed to Be on The Walking Dead

"Pissin' our pants yet?" So went the first words of Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), the leather jacket-clad, barbed wire-wrapped baseball bat-swinging Savior stepping out onto The Walking Dead in 2016. After terrorizing Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) and group in a cliffhanger ending the Season 6 finale, Negan's blood-thirsty "vampire bat" Lucille bashed the brains out of Abraham (Michael Cudlitz) and Glenn (Steven Yeun) to start Season 7 of The Walking Dead. It was the beginning of a reign that would last for two straight seasons, the All Out War between Rick's Survivors and Negan's Saviors not ending until the "Wrath" Season 8 finale in 2018.

In the eleventh and final season of The Walking Dead, Negan is a changed man. Rehabilitated after spending a time-jumped near-decade behind bars in the Alexandria jail, he's conspired with Carol (Melissa McBride) to assassinate Alpha of the Whispers, fought alongside Daryl (Norman Reedus) to end the Whisperer War, and even formed a tense truce with Maggie (Lauren Cohan). And in 2023, the ex-villain once spared by Rick Grimes will co-lead his own Walking Dead spin-off with Cohan's Maggie in The Walking Dead: Dead City.

During the flagship show's final Comic-Con panel at NYCC, Morgan reflected on what was originally a three-year tenure on The Walking Dead, signing on for Seasons 7, 8, and 9. 

"I think, originally, it was gonna be three years," Morgan told the convention crowd. "I think that was [the plan]. I had a conversation with Scott [Gimple, executive producer and then-showrunner], and it was like, 'You gotta be on it for at least three years if you want to be a part of this show.' I was like, 'That seems like a long time.'"

Since filming his Season 6-ending cameo in 2015, Morgan has been credited on more episodes of The Walking Dead than he ever appeared on his many other fan-favorite shows — including episodes of Supernatural, Magic City, Grey's Anatomy, Extant, and The Good Wife.

"Little did I know that eight years later or whatever, we'd still be here. That eight years has gone by like that. Like that," Morgan said. "I can't believe that we're here and celebrating the end of this show as we know it. It's unbelievable to me. There's been so many kind of iterations of this show through the years, losing people, having people come back."

Morgan added: "It's been one hell of a f—ing ride, I'll say that. Thank you, all of you, for coming along all these years, as well. Longer than I've been here, for sure."

After revealing the first look at TWD: Dead City, which sees Morgan and Cohan's characters travel together to a post-apocalyptic New York City, Morgan said of the Negan and Maggie spin-off: "We're proud of it, and we think you guys are going to love it."

Morgan and Cohan's Dead City is one of three new Walking Dead shows slated to air in 2023 on AMC and AMC+, joining the Daryl Dixon spinoff starring Norman Reedus and the Rick & Michonne series reuniting Andrew Lincoln and Danai Gurira.

Follow @CameronBonomolo and @NewsOfTheDead on Twitter for TWD Universe coverage all season long. New episodes of The Walking Dead's final season premiere Sundays on AMC and AMC+.