The Walking Dead ended on a pretty big cliffhanger last season that left many fans outraged. Negan, a much-hyped villain from the comic book, bashed in the brains of...someone with his barbed bat Lucille. The show cut to black before anyone could see who met their brutal end and it rightly pissed some people off. One of the most common criticisms of the ending was that there was no way the show could keep who died a secret for the months before the Season 7 premiere. The Walking Dead is one of the most popular shows right now, so it stands to reason that it has a lot of eyes watching it at all times. Something is bound to be leaked, and typically it comes from set photos from paparazzi. Greg Nicotero, an executive producer and director for the zombie drama, believes that they've come up with a way to avoid spoiling the biggest twist of the season.
Greg Nicotero spoke with IGN while promoting Universal Hollywood's Walking Dead theme park attraction and was asked how the show intends to avoid set leaks. Nicotero doesn't go into any intricate details, but he hinted that the filming schedule "doesn't necessarily mean that they are shooting in order." This implies that in an attempt to throw off paparazzi, The Walking Dead will film its episodes in different orders.
This could be taken a few ways. It could mean that they film whole episodes out of order (like filming episode 4, then 6, 2, 1, 5, and so on) or they mix the episodes up and film all of the scenes out of order. The latter sounds like a scheduling and editing nightmare, so it's more likely that the former is what Nicotero meant. There's no doubt that this would raise some question marks from hopeful photographers who don't understand what they are seeing, but that doesn't seem like it would thwart people for long. Paparazzi are spoiler monsters. Even Game of Thrones didn't go untouched when set photos were leaked of an alive Jon Snow on set after he was killed at the end of the previous season.
If the out of sequence plan does work, there's always the danger that someone close to the production could leak it. Even crazy nondisclosure contracts aren't enough to deter some people from making a little extra on the side. Not only that, but casting announcements or promotional materials are sometimes enough to be the kiss of death. Fans themselves can also end up solving the mystery, who have whole months to solve the mystery with fan theories.
Steven Yeun, who plays Glenn, the favored character to bite the dust (or bat, in this case) and the actor has lined up two movie roles since the Season 6 finale. Unless Yeun has a clone, it's pretty hard to film movies while you're on a TV show.
Only time will tell if the big spoiler will be leaked, and it's still a long way from the Season 7 premiere which will most likely be in October. Keep checking back in to CinemaBlend for any and all updates on The Walking Dead.
