Andrew Lincoln confirms that The Walking Dead movie finally has a start date after being delayed for almost two years. The larger Walking Dead universe has continued to grow and expand over time and now includes the shows Fear the Walking Dead and The Walking Dead: World Beyond with an upcoming Carol & Daryl spinoff show and The Walking Dead film trilogy expected to be the next iteration of The Walking Dead universe. No one is exactly sure what The Walking Dead films will cover just yet, other than the fact that Lincoln's character, Rick Grimes, will be the central figure.
Rick Grimes character left The Walking Dead in season 9 and shortly after his departure, AMC announced they would produce a Walking Dead trilogy of feature films. The films were originally announced at Comic-Con in 2019 and were supposed to enter production the same year. The production team ran into some speed-bumps as they tried to translate the dense 10 season show to an accessible piece of media for new viewers. As they worked out the kinks, the coronavirus took hold and by July of 2020 Producer David Alpert announced that the film would have to pause due to Covid-19 restrictions. The Walking Dead television series was cleared to begin filming again in October 2020, which opened the door for The Walking Dead movies to potentially film soon as well. The Walking Dead's Chief Creative Officer Scott Gimple stated that the films are pushing to have theatrical releases by the time they have gone through post production.
Speaking with Extra, Andrew Lincoln confirmed that The Walking Dead movie will officially start filming in Spring of 2021. Lincoln remarked in December that the production's ability to finally move forward is largely attributed to having access to the Covid-19 vaccine. The only remaining question is whether Lincoln will have any difficulty re-entering the states from his home in England in order to begin filming. Lincoln commented stating, "with good intentions, and if everything works and I can leave my country, I plan to be back in America filming in spring-summer."
Gimple commented on the film's continuous delay stating, "we are continuing to work on the movie. It is happening. We're taking this time from covid and we're hunkering down and Mr. Lincoln, Mr. Kirkman, Mr. Alpert, AMC, Universal - we're all charging forward it on it. It's just taking a bit more than TV. And then [we're] working on the new shows. So we have stuff into the future of The Walking Dead, and a lot of very different stuff. I'm really excited to hopefully have some more stuff to talk about with you coming into the New Year." If the film experiences no further delays and moves forward with production in the spring, The Walking Dead film would have a theatrical release in 2022, as The Walking Dead show finishes its final season on AMC.
After a seemingly uncertain future and unprecedented delays for both The Walking Dead show and features, Lincoln's announcement that the film plans to move forward this spring provides a light at the end of, what has felt like, a very long tunnel. As productions continue to adjust amidst the Covid-19 pandemic and vaccines becomes more widely available, the prospect that The Walking Dead movie can stick to it's proposed timeline seems within reach. Rick Grimes is a beloved character in The Walking Dead. Hopefully eager audiences will be able to meet with him again on the big screen in 2022.
Source: Extra