Almost four years after AMC announced that Andrew Lincoln’s exit during Season 9 of The Walking Dead would not be the end of Rick Grimes, we finally got an update on the trilogy of movies that were said to “expand the universe” of the series and “show a whole different corner of the world”: They ain’t happening.
At the tail end of the show’s San Diego Comic-Con panel Friday, Lincoln and leading lady Danai Gurira, who played Michonne, made a surprise appearance to reveal that instead of the features we’d been expecting, they’d be starring in a six-episode limited series, set to bow in 2023, that would wrap up their characters’ storylines. (And, knock wood, reunite them with their kids, Judith and RJ.)
Regular viewers of the long-running drama — which returns to finish out its 11th and final season on Sunday, Oct. 2, at 9/8c — will recall that in Season 9’s fifth episode (recapped here), an explosion on a bridge led Rick’s family and friends to believe that he’d been killed. But in fact, Pollyanna McIntosh’s Jadis/Anne had found him and had him spirited away to (relative) safety by the Civil Republic Military that was a focus of the two-season spinoff The Walking Dead: World Beyond. [Source]