Andrew Lincoln to star in a series of Walking Dead TV movies

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

If you haven't watched the most recent episode of AMC's The Walking Dead yet, there will be some SPOILERS ahead.

As the marketing for the show made sure to tell everyone, last night was the final episode of The Walking Dead to star Andrew Lincoln as Rick Grimes… but unlike so many other characters on the show, Rick didn't make his exit with a gruesome death. He left the show under mysterious circumstances, rescued from certain death by the helicopter Jadis/Anne (Pollyanna McIntosh) has been trading people with. He was going to live, and of course if Rick lives he is going to find his way back to the Alexandria Safe Zone someday, he's going to be determined to return to his girlfriend Michonne (Danai Gurira) and young daughter Judith.

Then the show really threw viewers for a loop when it jumped ahead six years for the last scene of the episode. Six years have gone by, and Rick has never come back. What could possibly keep him away from Michonne and Judith for that long?

We're going to find out. AMC and Scott M. Gimple, chief content officer of the Walking Dead franchise, have announced that Lincoln will return as Rick Grimes in a series of Walking Dead feature films that will likely air on AMC.

Gimple told The Hollywood Reporter, 

The story of Rick will go on in films. Right now, we're working on three but there's flexibility in that. … Over the next several years, we're going to be doing specials, new series are quite a possibility, high-quality digital content and then some content that defies description at the moment. We're going to dig into the past and see old characters. We're going to introduce new characters and new situations."

THR also found out that the current plan is for these movies to have two month production schedules. Lincoln left The Walking Dead because he wants to spend more time with his family in England, and two months of filming a movie, wherever filming may take place, will definitely be better for him in that regard than spending nine months of the year working on the show in Georgia.

Entertainment Weekly was able to get some more information out of Gimple:

It is really important for the audience to know that we are going to be continuing to tell the story of Rick Grimes in these AMC Studios original films. We don’t want this thing to be like, “Oh, well, he’ll be back on the show any moment now.” We are telling Rick’s story in another medium, and it’s going to be these AMC Studios original films. They’re going to be on AMC, most probably. They’re centered around Rick Grimes. We’re going to tell the story of what happens after that helicopter flight, and these are going to be big, epic entertainments. Each are quality films. That’s what’s been happening in the industry. We’ve seen Netflix make these, basically, studio films for people to watch in their homes, and we’re going to be doing the same sort of thing here.

… I am extremely hard at work on the first one right now, and most likely filming next year, though I’m freaking out about deadlines right now, so I’m not going to tell you exactly when because it will only make me pass out. But it really is going to be sooner than later. On the flip side, these are not going to be made on television schedules. This is going to be on feature schedules, and they’re going to be big, so they’re going to take a minute to make.

We are talking about a trilogy for this Rick Grimes story. It doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the only Rick Grimes stories we’re ever going to tell, and also they’re probably not going to be the only movies that we tell. The Rick Grimes story, of course, is the biggest thing that we’re doing right off the bat, but we’re going to be doing a number of different Walking Dead things over the next few years. A universe of stuff. We’re not going to release it all at once. We’re going to be putting things out over the years for maximum effect. We don’t want to overwhelm folks with it. But we’re going to see all sorts of different Walking Dead projects in all sorts of ways with old standbys, with new voices, which is really important to me. And they’re all going to be very different and distinct from the shows. We have this one amazing show that is showing the beginning of its civilization, and we have this other show with these folks who are trying to make up for the things that they did. We’re going to be having different entertainments, different narratives within The Walking Dead. Different tone, different characters. We’re also going to see old characters — review some content with old favorites. We get to revisit them and see stories of their past that we might not have shared before."

Well, they have me guaranteed to check out these Rick Grimes movies, because I really need to know what happened after he and Jadis flew off in that helicopter, and what sort of obstacles could keep him away from Alexandria for six years.