As one of TV’s most successful and spinoff-able franchises, The Walking Dead is seemingly still showing no signs of creeping to a halt, with AMC execs no doubt hoping the highly anticipated The Ones Who Live spinoff brings wayward viewers back into the fold with the returns of Andrew Lincoln’s Rick and Danai Gurira’s Michonne. But if everything goes completely optimistically, franchise head honcho Scott Gimple has tentative plans for the biggest (and possibly best) TWD spinoff yet.
Beyond Rick and Michonne’s comeback show, the lineup of upcoming Walking Dead shows includes second seasons of Daryl Dixon (which will welcome back Melissa McBride’s Carol) and Dead City’s drama between Negan and Maggie. While speaking at a TCA Winter Press Tour panel (via TheWrap), Gimple addressed the grand notion that TWD’s various post-apocalyptic offshoots could perhaps one day come together for a mega-spinoff. In his words:
I do have dreams of merging this all together, and I have [placed] little breadcrumbs towards that. You never know exactly when and how, because of a variety of reasons … I will just say, I’m building those pathways.
Having started off as a writer and producer before rising up the ranks to showrunner and then Chief Content Officer, Scott Gimple has had his hands in the Walking Dead cookie jar for the bulk of the franchise’s existence, so he’s long been able to lay groundwork for ideas and concepts meant to be explored in later seasons or entirely different projects. Even if those ideas don’t actually come to fruition, the seeds are still there for germination.
And while everyone’s mileage will vary when it comes to the spinoffs and the O.G. show itself, a super-spinoff could be the best thing this brand ever produced. We could see Dwight and Negan together again, for better or worse, but I think it would be more fun to witness all the character combos that wouldn’t exist if not for spinoffs colliding. How badass would it be to see Maggie, June, Hope, Isabelle and Evie teaming up? (Extra points if Negan’s absent wife Annie is also involved.)
Not that Gimple shared any specifics by way of the breadcrumbs he was referring to. One might imagine quite a few of those easter egg details would involve the CRM, which has been the largest and most damaging piece of interconnective tissue between the flagship horror-drama and its spinoffs. But there are no doubt plenty of moments that may have seemed curious in the moment, but would make all the more sense if they were revealed to be stepping stones to a bigger universe.
It’s a big and exciting concept, but Scott Gimple knows full well that hopes and intentions don’t always go where one hopes, and made sure to point out that an all-encompassing spinoff isn’t the only way things could go, saying:
[But there] could be all sorts of pivots along the way.
Will any of those pivots involve Rick, Michonne, Jadis or any of the new characters that will be introduced in the latest new series? I guess we need to see how things shake out there before we start laying out hopes for either a second season, or for the duo to become the new leaders of the free world at large. In Richonne We Trust!
The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live will debut on AMC and AMC+ on Sunday, February 25. The O.G. series' full run can be streamed with a Netflix subscription, and head to our 2024 TV premiere schedule to see what else will be popping up soon.
