The Walking Dead Developing a “Straight Comedy” Project

A “straight Walking Dead comedy” is one of the many projects coming out of The Walking Dead Universe at AMC, according to the franchise’s chief content officer Scott Gimple. In addition to new episodes from the three Walking Dead shows returning in 2021 — the mothership series and spin-offs Fear the Walking Dead and TWD: World Beyond — Gimple oversees a slate that includes the untitled Daryl/Carol spin-off and episodic anthology Tales of the Walking Dead. The comedic project is part of a plan encompassing a variety of miniseries, short-form stories, and other limited-run or stand-alone series and specials expanding TWD Universe.

“We are working on a straight Walking Dead comedy right now,” Gimple said during the AMC+ streaming exclusive The Walking Dead Holiday Special. “We’re not making fun of our world, but it’s just more of a comedic take on the world.”

It’s unclear if this planned project would be a series or one of the short-form offerings part of Gimple’s goal to “achieve more variety in the things we put out,” as he told The Hollywood Reporter last October.

“Television is changing, and that’s exciting because we can tell stories in other formats than 16-episode seasons. I think we will continue to do that, and we have plans for that, but we also have plans for shorter length series,” Gimple said at the time. “For mini-series, for things that are like specials. And it’s taking advantage of not only the different stories we can tell but the different formats we can tell them in.”

Gimple added it would be “silly” not to tell different types of stories, including those not connected to the television shows or the franchise’s upcoming feature film trilogy centered on Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln).

“I think that is the future of television, that there isn’t just one way to do it. Because this is such a big world with such different stories, it’d be silly not to do that,” he said. “And it also means not everything we put out is going to be connected to any of the existing shows. And further, some of it might not even need to go beyond a certain length.”

Unlike The Walking Dead and Fear, both consisting of 16-episode seasons, Gimple added, “We do want to do these smaller things that are completely their own thing, and then do something else. Some stuff could be three episodes, some stuff could be six episodes, some stuff could be 12 or 16 [episodes].”

Follow the author @CameronBonomolo on Twitter for all things TWD. All three shows from The Walking Dead Universe return with new episodes in 2021 on AMC.