AMC has renewed The Walking Dead for a 10th season of zombie mayhem

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

With The Walking Dead set to return for the second half of its ninth season next Sunday, AMC has elected to keep the long-running series going a little longer as they've renewed The Walking Dead for a tenth season. That's…kind of crazy. Angela Kang, who stepped into the role of showrunner for season nine when Scott M. Gimple left to serve oversee the larger Walking Dead franchise, will continue in the role for the tenth.

Although ratings have slipped somewhat since the glory years of the series, it's clear that AMC still considers The Walking Dead to be their flagship franchise. In addition to the main series, we've also got the prequel spin-off, Fear the Walking Dead, which was renewed for a fifth season last year, as well as a trilogy of Walking Dead films which will star Andrew Lincoln as Rick Grimes. THR reports that the new season will find Norman Needus and Melissa McBride scoring sizable pay bumps, and their new contracts will reportedly also allow them to "move freely among new projects in The Walking Dead universe."  AMC programming president David Madden told THR last November that "We do look at this as a universe where we're trying to expand into as many different places as the show fits. We think this is a franchise that could live across formats. So we want to do it carefully; we want to be strategic; we want to try to do it right. But there is a multi-year plan that could include additional series, digital content and specials."

The Walking Dead returns to AMC on February 10th.