‘The Walking Dead’ Boss Envisions Long Future for Franchise: It ‘Could Go On and On’

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March 2024 Issue

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The Walking Dead Universe will live to see another day. Many more days, in fact, if TWDU’s chief content officer Scott M. Gimple has anything to say about it.

“I think Walking Dead could go on and on and on and on,” he says. “Star Trek does it.”

He has a point. With six live-action series—not counting the many digital short-form shows—equaling hundreds of hours of television, the zombie franchise that began on Halloween in 2010 (AMC’s biggest premiere ever) isn’t shuffling toward the grave any time soon. Gimple offers a sample of what’s to come.

First, is there any chance we’ll get a second season of The Ones Who Live? People are always hungry for more Rick Grimes.

Scott M. Gimple: I think it’s one of those “never say never” situations, but I also don’t want to tell people how the story ends. So, who knows? Maybe after seeing the end, you’ll be like, “Oh yeah, they can’t do another one because of X, Y and Z.”

Executive Producer Scott M. Gimple on set of Fear the Walking Dead (Gene Page/AMC)

Where are you in the process with the second seasons of your other spinoffs, The Walking Dead: Dead City and TWD: Daryl Dixon?

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We’re [in postproduction of] Season 2 of Daryl, and they’re scouting [locations] on Dead City right now [at press time in January]. If I wasn’t busy finishing up [Daryl Dixon], I would be with them.

Great! Is that all you’re working on?

We’re in the lab right now and [working on] a lot of really strange things that could come to be. I am excited for the other possibilities, but right now they’re just possibilities.

Can you comment on Melissa McBride’s return as fan-favorite Carol Peletier? First she wasn’t going to be in Daryl Dixon, then she was a surprise guest star in the Season 1 finale, and now Season 2 is subtitled The Book of Carol.

My biggest comment is it was hard not to comment about it as soon as I could, because I really wanted everyone to know, but I didn’t want to ruin anything. It is what was meant to be—those actors complement each other. I don’t want to get ahead of the story. Although I think people might predict that [Carol and Daryl] interact. People will guess that one. [Laughs]

Emmanuel Guimier/AMC

Do you see yourself steering the Dead ship forever? Or will you want to move on to other projects eventually?

I’d love to keep doing Walking Dead stuff. I want to do other things along the way too. What’s funny is, I’m working on other non–Walking Dead things, but with Walking Dead people. I won’t go deep into it, but one of the things is a straight-up comedy with one of the Dead cast members that we’re working on for one of the streamers.

Fans are going to be combing through the actors’ IMDb pages for any past comedy work now….

You know what? This is somebody who you might not guess.

What else is on your Dead bucket list?

I really want to use more Walking Dead characters and have them in different situations and configurations. That’s always my dream of using more of these characters. You look at the last issue of the comic, the world that Robert [Kirkman, TWD’s comic creator] built was screaming for TV treatment. We say that to Robert all the time.

I also get really excited about the idea of doing stuff in this world that is completely unrelated to anything. And then, you know, we have these three pretty direct spinoff shows [Dead City, Daryl Dixon and The Ones Who Live]. I dream of having these characters together again. I plant those seeds and I hope that I get a chance to do that. That would be wonderful.

The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live, Sundays, 9/8c, AMC

This is an excerpt from TV Insider’s March 2024 issue, currently on newsstands, or purchase it online here. You can also subscribe to TV Insider Magazine here now.