The Walking Dead is making a major change to Negan's origin story by keeping his wife, Lucille, alive for longer than she is in the comics. When the AMC drama returns in February, the new episodes will be an extension of season 10 rather than a true season 11. This is a result of AMC choosing to hold off on filming The Walking Dead season 11 until the COVID-19 pandemic is more firmly under control and production can return to work as normal. As such, the new episodes are expected to be smaller, more intimate stories focusing on only a few characters each, keeping down the number of cast and crew members needed.
One of these extra Walking Dead season 10 episodes explores Negan's backstory in flashbacks and introduces his first wife, Lucille. The Walking Dead comics only briefly touch on Negan's life prior to the outbreak, and it's only in a Walking Dead spinoff, the prequel comic Here's Negan, that the original Lucille is introduced. That comic follows Negan throughout the earliest days of the outbreak, beginning shortly before his wife dies of cancer. The upcoming Walking Dead season 10 episode titled "Here's Negan" is adapting this origin story, but already, a new trailer shows their Lucille sticking around for longer than her comic book counterpart.
In the Walking Dead season 10 trailer, there's a flashback scene of Negan failing to put down a walker attacking him. As he struggles, the walker is shot by someone else - his wife, Lucille, seen wearing a wig and carrying an IV pole. In the Here's Negan comic, Lucille succumbs to cancer and dies in the hospital at the onset of the outbreak. She even turns into a walker in her hospital bed and Negan is unable to bring himself to kill her, finding someone else to do the deed. For their "Here's Negan" episode, however, AMC's The Walking Dead keeps the cancer diagnosis but changes the part where she dies in the hospital early on. Instead, their Lucille will travel with Negan for a time, experiencing at least some of the outbreak first hand.
In The Walking Dead season 8, Negan describes being unable to put his wife down when she turned, so Lucille will still die from her cancer. What's changed is how long into the outbreak she lives before that happens. The wig implies she's been receiving chemotherapy, and without regular treatment, her health is likely to decline quickly. That means she'll still probably die relatively early on, even with the TV show extending her final days to beyond her hospital bed. It also means actress Hilarie Burton has more to do as Lucille, which will help in fleshing out this minor though important character.
For instance, having Lucille live longer leads to moments like the one in the trailer that shows her saving Negan's life. Scenes like this are likely how The Walking Dead will explore Negan and Lucille's relationship, actively demonstrating how their dynamic works. In the comics, Negan recalls how it was Lucille who protected him, putting him in "a bubble where nothing got to me". He explains that she made him stronger and helped him survive. What Negan is likely referring to in this context is how Lucille was the one who took care of things in their pre-outbreak life, protecting him from any hardship or struggle. Now, though, the TV show appears to be taking a more literal approach by having Lucille save Negan's life outright when she dispatches the walker attacking him.
Where The Walking Dead comics only briefly showed Negan and Lucille's relationship, leaving it mostly for Negan to later recall, the AMC show will take the time to show them attempting to survive the earliest days of the outbreak together. This won't necessarily change the dynamic between the two, but it will more plainly demonstrate how Lucille is the stronger of the two, keeping a level-head in even the most dire situations. And where before it was only Lucille's memory that helped Negan through the outbreak's early days, now she'll actually be there, instilling in him the belief that he has what it takes to survive.