Pablo Scarpellini Los Angeles
The Angels
Updated Tuesday, February 27, 2024-21:21
Dead City Adventure, violence and zombies in the big city: The Walking Dead refuses to die
Daryl Dixon A new hope for The Walking Dead
There are characters that are difficult to let die, even in an environment as conducive to this as a post-apocalyptic world full of zombies.
It is simply not profitable.
Andrew Lincoln
and
Danai Gurira
know this well
, who for years gave life to
Rick Grimes
and
Michonne
, supporting the weight of one of the most important series in AMC history,
The Walking Dead
.
Such was the response from the audience that
Scott Gimple
, one of the
showrunners
, reached an agreement with
Lincoln
between the fourth and fifth seasons to extend the life of the character with a subsequent product and an undefined date.
14 years later,
Grimes
has returned to reunite with his great love.
Much has changed since the first episode of the series based on the comics by
Robert Kirkman
,
Tony Moore
and
Charlie Adlard
was broadcast .
The cable television in which it was born in October 2010 is today a pale shadow of itself, shaken by the emergence of streaming
platforms
.
AMC
itself
felt the blow of the massive flight of subscribers as the seasons of
The Walking Dead
progressed and an inconvenient smell of saturation began to sneak through the cracks.
Suffice it to compare the 17 million viewers who gathered to follow the premiere of the fifth season with the scarce three million who were there for the 90-minute grand finale in 2022, now without
Michonne
or
Rick Grimes
.
Both
Gimple
,
Lincoln
and
Gurira
, the creators of the sixth
spin-off
of the franchise -
The walking dead: The ones who live
, the six-episode miniseries that is now premiering on the AMC+
streaming service
, with a new chapter every Monday - are aware of the challenge: to reconnect with his old fans almost a decade and a half later and add new followers to the cause.
It seems complicated.
Gimple
talks about cycles, about changing times.
Gurira
, for his part, seems little concerned about the resistance of a few
.
She is convinced that the story of love and survival of the marriage between
Grimes
, the former deputy
sheriff
in a Georgia town, and
Michonne
, the tireless warrior and katana expert, will find its audience.
“Once you get hooked on the first episode, you will continue watching the others,” explains the
showrunner
over a video call.
«There are many who wanted us to tell this story.
And anyone who is not interested has it easy: not to see it," challenges the actress from Iowa, daughter of African immigrants, on her part, full of conviction.
Danai Gurira returns as the warrior Michonne in The walking dead.AMC
Gurira
, also known for her role in the
Black Panther
films , knew this moment would come.
"It was always the plan, even by contract," he says in relation to the idea of telling how the story developed between
Grimes
and the love of her life, a
Michonne
who stopped appearing in the series in 2020, two years after the departure of his partner.
The
showrunner
confesses that the wear and tear of the British
Andrew Lincoln
was already evident, away from his family in England for several months a year and subjected to long days of filming in the humidity of Georgia.
So he gave him the option to leave in the ninth season with the premise that he would return to narrate the reunion with
Michonne
when the time came.
They executed it cleverly, in a scene where
Grimes
blows up a bridge to save his friends and family and then disappears in a black helicopter.
The initial plan was to make a film that revealed more details about the post-apocalyptic world of
The Walking Dead
, but they believed it was more convenient to tell the story in six chapters of one hour each.
The new
spin-off
involves a jump in time and places
Grimes
in a secret city that is kept hidden, where her task is to make sure that no one ever leaves her.
He himself wants to escape to reunite with
Michonne
, but repeatedly fails.
"It's more a story of love than survival, but there is death. Otherwise, it wouldn't make sense," says Danai Gurira
"It's more of a love story than survival," says
Gurira
, who in addition to being the protagonist is executive producer and author of the fourth chapter.
«The survival aspect is not as intense as it was at the beginning, but people die.
"This series would have no meaning if no one died."
Looking back, the Tony-nominated playwright also confesses that she never imagined that a character like
Michonne
would keep her busy for seven and a half years.
«I have learned that when I let myself be carried away by my intuition and my heart falls in the right place.
And this character is.
"I will always be grateful to him."
Not only
Lincoln
and
Gurira
return .
Pollyanna McIntosh
once again plays
Jades Stoke
, the CRM senior non-commissioned officer who disappeared with
Grimes
in the helicopter, in a cast completed by
Terry Quinn
,
Andrew Bachelor
and South African
Leslie-Ann Brandt
, in the role of
Pearl Thorne
.
Brandt
talks about "love as the epicenter of the series" and how far human beings can go to defend their loved ones.
"It is a very human story, even if it is with a post-apocalyptic world in the background," she analyzes.
It is not, in any case, AMC
's last attempt
to exploit the world of the living dead created by Kirkman.
The walking dead: Daryl Nixon
, starring
Norman Reedus
, will premiere its second season this year and will have at least a third.
And
The Walking Dead: Dead City
seems to be following similar parameters.
Dan McDermott
, president of entertainment for AMC networks and studios, compares it to infinite universes like
Star Wars
and
Star Trek
.
In his head, and it seems in his wallet, the world of
The Walking Dead
is a zombie apocalypse that will never come to an end.