The fate of The Walking Dead in 2020 is unknown with so many different delays compounding the arrival of three different shows, the main one, Fear and World Beyond. But probably also even more than that, like the Rick Grimes spin-off movies we’re supposed to be getting one of these years.
AMC is now experimenting with different kinds of Walking Dead content delivery. Rick’s getting those movies, World Beyond is a 20 episode limited series. So what else is planned?
The newest report comes from We Got This Covered and claims that another character may be getting their own spin-off film, Daryl Dixon.
Unlike Rick, who may be joined by Michonne, who both left the show, this would be for a character that is still on the series. And no, don’t worry about this meaning Norman Reedus is on his way out. He has claimed emphatically he’s never leaving the show and will be the one to “turn the lights out” when it’s all over in 2045 or whatever it ends up being at this rate.
The leak says that “presumably” the movie says will take place after season 11 or 12, and will see Daryl searching for Rick Grimes, complete with some flashbacks that involve his brother Merle, played by Michael Rooker.
While I could see AMC giving Daryl his own movie, I am less confident that the focus would be about finding Rick. I mean, isn’t Michonne leaving the show to go on a journey to find Rick right now? So they’re going to use that motivation twice? I don’t really understand that, and a Michonne solo feature where she’s off trying to find Rick by herself would be much more interesting, especially given how her finale ended with her finding a huge new group we’ve never seen before (and I still don’t know who that was, given that it’s a non-comic story development). There’s an additional report about Jon Bernthal showing up in the Rick Grimes movies as Shane, presumably, again, in flashbacks.
There have also been rumors for a while about doing a Negan origin story film, which actually has comic source material and has Jeffrey Dean Morgan positively itching to do it. But I haven’t heard anything about that for a while.
I do wonder if all this Michone/Daryl finding Rick stuff is going to be a way to try to bring him back to the main series at some point, even if that’s a few years from now. I know Andrew Lincoln wanted to leave to be with his family, but if he can ever convince them to move to America someday, maybe that will be his ticket back into the role he was born to play, we’ll have to see.
Source: forbes.com