Steven Yeun, who plays Glenn on The Walking Dead, is one of the show's last remaining original series regulars. He’s one of the few characters who’s been around since Season One and he’s built up a loyal fan base in those years. The Season 6 finale ended on a massive cliffhanger where one unrevealed character was killed. That character is probably Glenn because Yeun has just signed on to star in another movie.
According to the Hollywood Reporter, Steven Yeun has signed on to star in the next film by director Bong Joon Ho (Snowpiercer) called Okja. Also starring Tilda Swinton, Jake Gyllenhall and Paul Dano, the film is about a young girl who befriends a genetically modified pig. After the pig grows to gigantic proportions, the corporation that created him takes him away, and the girl, now a teenager, mounts a rescue operation to save the pig. There are currently no details on what character Yeun will play in the monster movie.
This is the second film that Steven Yeun has signed on for recently. In March it was announced that he would be starring in Mayhem, a psychological action movie from director Joe Lynch. When a virus that makes people act out their wildest impulses hits a corporate law office, Yeun’s character will have to fight to survive the ordeal.
This is bad news for Walking Dead fans. It’s one thing for an actor to film a single movie while doing a TV show, but two movies? Glenn’s dead. There’s no way he’s still on the show. Usually, a telltale sign that an actor got killed off is when they announce they are joining a new project. It happened recently on The 100 (which kills way more characters than The Walking Dead, by the way) when actor Ricky Whittle was cast as the lead for the American Gods TV adaptation and a few weeks later his character was killed.
This is disappointing on a lot of levels but probably the biggest is that it could completely ruin The Walking Dead Season 7 premiere. The last season ended with new villain Negan bashing someone’s brains in with a bat. It wasn’t revealed who was on the receiving end and fans were going to have to wait months to find out what happened. Steven Yeun’s new casting could ruin that. It’s possible that Glenn isn’t the victim and that he will die a little later in the series, but that seems unlikely. In the comics Glenn is killed by Negan in the exact same way, so he was already the number one suspect for fans familiar with the books. This just seems like poor storytelling from The Walking Dead, who could have avoided losing a surprise, which could be easily leaked, by just showing who died in the same episode. Now the premiere could lack a serious punch.
The Walking Dead Season 7 will return this fall at some point in October.
