Robert Kirkman says pandemic delay makes The Walking Dead movie even better

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

After starring as Rick Grimes on AMC's The Walking Dead for close to a decade, Andrew Lincoln departed the series in a storyline which found the character sacrificing his life to save his community and friends from a massive horde of walkers; but, Grimes wasn't actually dead and it was revealed that he had been rescued by a mysterious group and taken off to parts unknown in a helicopter. It was then announced that Rick Grimes would return in a trilogy of movies set in the world of The Walking Dead.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, production on The Walking Dead movie obviously hasn't had the opportunity to kick off, but while speaking in a virtual panel at Skybound Xpo, creator Robert Kirkman teased that the delay will only make the movie better.

There's tons of stuff going on behind the scenes. I don't want anyone to think that we're just kind of waiting around for this pandemic to end. I would say that, if anything, the pandemic is going to make a lot of movies better. I think the Rick Grimes movie chief among them, just because we're getting a lot more time to cook this thing and make sure it's perfect. But when things do quiet down, you guys are going to hear a ton more about this movie.

Schedules are typically pretty damn tight with these projects, so getting to spend more time perfecting the script is definitely a good thing. "We're coming along in a big way. We're just in this particular space where we have [to wait]," added executive producer David Alpert. "We can't shoot right now, so that's just the big thing holding us back. We are desperate to get back into production, and get everything going, but we have something really exciting, really unique, really different, and can't wait to get it going. We just have to wait for it to be safe." Although I've largely given up on the TV series, I'd be lying if I didn't admit that I'm at least a little curious to see how they pull off this big-screen version of The Walking Dead.

Speaking of The Walking Dead TV series, the tenth season wrapped up prematurely earlier this year as AMC announced that they would be unable to complete post-production on the season finale in time. However, the "jaw-dropping" episode is still expected to debut later this year, and I'd imagine we'll hear a little more during its panel at Comic-Con this Friday.