Moviefone Editorial

Tag: scott-m-gimple

  • Comic-Con 2022: ‘Walking Dead’s Andrew Lincoln and Danai Gurira Returning

    Norman Reedus as Daryl Dixon, Andrew Lincoln as Rick Grimes, and Danai Gurira as Michonne in AMC's 'The Walking Dead.'
    (L to R) Norman Reedus as Daryl Dixon, and Danai Gurira as Michonne, and Andrew Lincoln as Rick Grimes in AMC’s ‘The Walking Dead.’

    When Andrew Lincoln’s ‘The Walking Dead’ character Rick Grimes was spirited away by mysterious forces in a helicopter early in Season 9 of the show, fans were left wondering when he might show up again.

    And then Michonne, played by Dania Gurira, departed the following season on a quest to find the man she loves.

    We had been told around that time that their story might continue in TV movies (partly to work around Lincoln’s schedule).

    Now, though, both actors made a surprise appearance at the San Diego Comic-Con Hall H panel for the show to announce that their characters will in fact return in a new series.

    Lincoln and Gurira, who have been actively involved in conceiving the creative and the continuation of their characters’ story, will be executive producers, while Scott M. Gimple, Chief Content Officer of ‘Walking Dead’ Universe, is acting as showrunner.

    “What a great surprise for the fans at this final Comic-Con for the series that launched this universe and made television history, says Dan McDermott, president of entertainment and AMC Studios for AMC Networks. “We couldn’t be more excited for a truly epic series finale later this year and to see Andy and Danai return in a new series they helped create, one of three new series coming in 2023 that continue the stories of so many iconic and fan-favorite TWD characters.”

    Danai Gurira as Michonne, and Andrew Lincoln as Rick Grimes in AMC's 'The Walking Dead.'
    (L t R) Danai Gurira as Michonne, and Andrew Lincoln as Rick Grimes in AMC’s ‘The Walking Dead.’

    “Rick and Michonne are two of my favorite people and Danai and Andy are two of my favorite people,” Gimple says. “Working with all of them continues to be a dream come true. The three of us, along with a terrific team of ‘TWD’ all stars and incredible new voices, are crafting an insane love epic worth the long, long wait.”

    “This has been the most extraordinary journey playing Rick Grimes for the best part of a decade. The friendships I’ve made along the way are deep and lasting, so it’s fitting that I finally get to complete the story with Danai and Scott and the rest of the ‘TWD’ family, Lincoln enthuses. “I’m so excited to be returning to the screen as Rick, reuniting with Danai as Michonne, and bringing the fans an epic love story to add to the ‘Walking Dead’ Universe.”

    Gurira adds: “Michonne and this ‘TWD’ family has meant so much to me, and to continue the journey of these beloved characters, alongside Scott and Andy, both creatively and in front of the camera, and bringing ‘Walking Dead’ fans something truly special is just glorious. I can’t wait to pick up the katana again.”

    Here’s the official synopsis: “This series presents an epic love story of two characters changed by a changed world. Kept apart by distance by an unstoppable power. By the ghosts of who they were. Rick and Michonne are thrown into another world, built on a war against the dead… And ultimately, a war against the living. Can they find each other and who they were in a place and situation unlike any they’ve ever known before? Are they enemies? Lovers? Victims? Victors? Without each other, are they even alive – or will they find that they, too, are the Walking Dead?”

    While the main ‘Walking Dead’ show wraps up this year, there are a variety of spin-offs in the works, including those featuring fan-favorite Daryl (Norman Reedus), Maggie (Lauren Cohan) and Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) and anthology ‘Tales of the Walking Dead’, which starts on August 14th.

    This new Rick/Michonne series, which has yet to announce its title, will launch next year with six episodes.

    Andrew Lincoln as Rick Grimes in AMC's 'The Walking Dead.'
    Andrew Lincoln as Rick Grimes in AMC’s ‘The Walking Dead.’
  • AMC Plans to Continue ‘The Walking Dead’ Universe for ‘the Next Decade, Plus’

    AMC Plans to Continue ‘The Walking Dead’ Universe for ‘the Next Decade, Plus’

    The Walking Dead Season 9
    Jackson Lee Davis/AMC

    “The Walking Dead” itself may not last for another decade, but the “universe” it has created will continue.

    Because everything is a “universe” now.

    Marvel Cinematic Universe, DC Extended Universe, The Conjuring Universe, heck even The Vampire Diaries has its own universe. Your family should add “Universe” to your last name to stay on trend.

    AMC CEO Josh Sapan was at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia Conference (!!!) talking up the network’s plans, when he was asked about declining ratings for the flagship series “The Walking Dead.”

    Here’s his reply, via The Hollywood Reporter:

    Asked about the weaker ratings for AMC hit show The Walking Dead, Sapan argued the popular series was more of a franchise. “The Walking Dead is a universe…and we have a plan to manage over the next decade, plus. That plan is a careful plan to respect the world of the fans of that world,” he argued, as Sapan pointed to Fear of the Walking Dead as an extension of The Walking Dead franchise.

    “Fear the Walking Dead” is part of that growing “universe” now, but the overall viewers and 18-49 demo ratings for “Fear” Season 4 are nothing to brag about. “The Walking Dead” itself is still doing much better — even after the steep drops of Season 8, it’s still the most watched and highest rated cable show. But the upcoming TWD Season 9 is about to lose Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln). AMC’s promos are now using that as a selling point to get fans to watch, but are fans going to keep watching after he is gone?

    Scott M. Gimple is no longer “The Walking Dead” showrunner, but he was instead apparently promoted to Chief Content Officer, aka master of this shared universe. During Comic-Con, Gimple teased plans for another spinoff (via Geek Tyrant):

    “I’m working on something to announce [that will affect] the past, present, and future of the universe. […] We have a bunch of different things in mind, cool new ‘Walking Dead’ stuff. Some things that are really complementary to the stuff we’re doing now and some stuff that’s far afield and very different.”

    So that must be part of the “next decade, plus” that AMC is planning.

    Will you be there to see it all play out?

    “The Walking Dead” Season 9 premieres Sunday, October 7 on AMC.

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  • Will ‘The Walking Dead’ Have a Multi-Year Time Jump After Season 8?

    “The Walking Dead” has done small time jumps before, but nothing on the level of what they could do in the next year if they follow the comic book.

    *MINOR COMIC BOOK SPOILERS AHEAD*

    “The Walking Dead” Season 7 just ended with a declaration of All Out War. That is definitely in the comic book, although the TV show changed a lot of details, as usual. There’s always a “remix” on TV changing the story a bit, but the big picture items tend to stick. What about the major multi-year time jump in the comics, after All Out War ends?

    The Hollywood Reporter talked to showrunner Scott M. Gimple and comic book writer/exec producer Robert Kirkman, and it sounds like the plan may be for the TV show to fill in the gaps of Kirkman’s story — showing some of the stuff he skipped over with the two-year time jump. There may still be a smaller time jump, but Gimple seems interested in following at least some of what happened off-page, rather than having fans just catch up to a vastly changed world all at once. (If that’s the case, hopefully it doesn’t slow down the show’s narrative. That is the last thing TWD can afford.)

    Here’s what Gimple said about the time jump idea, when asked by THR:

    “For the people who read the comics, they’re going to be expecting this. We’re doing the book, we do all sorts of variations on it, and then we do things that are inspired by it and then we change things up with a remix. But I will say there are things that happen in that time jump that are referred to that are super interesting. And thus we might see some of that stuff; it might not be the same sort of jump, or we’ll do that two to five years in real time.

    I’ve had a general plan for a long time, and invariably when I do that, there are little things that catch and change that plan. But in general, I think there’s going to be a little bit more content that Robert actually refers to. There’s stuff in there that I was reading that I wondered about, and when I wonder about stuff that I like, I like getting into that stuff [on the show]. We’re definitely going to honor it and do it, but we’re definitely going to have either more of it or possibly do it in a different way.”

    Kirkman said he and Gimple talk all the time about what they want to cover and how, “because there’s a tremendous amount of budget involved and strategic planning on how to keep the show going. We need to know these things and being able to know these things years in advance is what helps us make this show possible. So we’ve discussed everything.”

    If they’ve discussed everything, and need to know years in advance, then these answers are not really speculation, they are hints to what has already been set in stone. The outline for Season 8 must already be complete; usually, TWD starts filming its 16-episode seasons at the start of May, so pre-production must be gearing up in Atlanta for Round 8.

    So they know what they’re going to do, but it is not clear if they plan to finish up All Out War in Season 8. It could take all season. It could take more than a season. It could take less than a season, and they could use the rest of the episodes to tell some of those stories skipped in the comic book’s time jump. And then … Magna and The Whisperers, right? Season 9?

    “The Walking Dead” Season 8 will arrive in October.

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  • ‘The Walking Dead’ Season 8: ‘First 4 Episodes Will Melt People’s Minds’

    And so the long wait begins. “The Walking Dead” Season 7 just ended strong, after a less-than-strong full season, but now that things are (finally) getting started in the war against Negan and the Saviors, there’s a six month break until we see the next episode. Season 8 will premiere in October, like every other season, and showrunner Scott M. Gimple did his usual vague early hyping on “Talking Dead.”

    Gimple admitted to host Chris Hardwick that he’s asked for a next season preview every year after the finale, and every time he says the same stuff:

    “I say it’s going to be bigger, it’s going to be more intense. I say these things and I’ve meant them every year, and I think we’ve actually accomplished that. This year, same thing. More intense. The first four episodes will melt people’s minds and break their televisions.”

    Not all fans would agree that they’ve accomplished what they’ve hyped, but so be it. What happens after Episode 4? Will we not be able to watch because we have no minds or TVs, or does the show just go for filler after that?

    TWD has kept to a fairly standard filming schedule for its 16-episode seasons. The cast usually shows up in Georgia, where they shoot, in mid-to-late April to start filming in the first week of May. They usually take a short break in August after filming the midseason finale, then return to finish the rest of the season until late November or early December.

    In the meantime, we can look forward to more hype about how great Season 8 will be, and watch videos like this one from AMC wrapping up Season 7, and this one honoring the fallen:

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  • Why ‘The Walking Dead’ Creator Is ‘Disappointed’ With ‘Game of Thrones’ Author

    UPDATE: Robert Kirkman clarified, and joked about, his GRRM quote in a series of tweets:


    Original post:

    There’s a funky kind of nerd rivalry happening with “Game of Thrones” and “The Walking Dead.” They are both insanely popular, with crossover fan bases, and both based on ongoing print series that are now slightly-to-very different from the TV versions. TWD creator Robert Kirkman just did an interview with Rolling Stone, and he dragged GoT author George R.R. Martin into the story to shame! shame! shame! him for spoiling his own work.

    Kirkman, “Walking Dead” comic book writer and TV series executive producer, is now working many, many issues ahead of the storyline of the AMC show, which premieres Season 7 in October. On the other side of the coin, GRRM has yet to finish the behemoth tome that will be the sixth of seven books in his “A Song of Ice and Fire” series. The first book, “Game of Thrones,” became the title of the HBO show that is currently covering new ground in Season 6.

    GoT viewers are now getting a mix of material from previously published books; new material that’s exclusive to the show; and some stuff that will be in the next books, so it’s being “spoiled” by HBO. Kirkman shamed GRRM in Rolling Stone for telling GoT showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss the major bullet points and end game for the rest of his series. That’s not something RK would ever do for showrunner Scott M. Gimple on “The Walking Dead.”

    Here’s that portion of the Rolling Stone Q&A:

    Do you have an end game for Dead in mind?
    For the books? I do. I know how the story wraps up. The big question is when and how far in the distance that is. But I think that most people think, oh, why would he end it? It’s so successful, he’s going to keep throwing shit at the wall to keep it going. And that’s not going to happen. You’ll eventually be able to see that it all kind of comes together.

    There’s still plenty of story for the TV series to get to; you could tell the writers where you’re going, and …
    I would never do that. That’s the one thing I’m disappointed in George R.R. Martin for doing. He should have just been like, F-ck you. You make it up now, I’ll get to mine when I’m ready.

    Eh. Would you have done that, if you were GRRM? It’s a tricky spot to be in. This is his story, so you can understand if he wants the showrunners to hit the big picture notes, even if it will never be *the* definitive adaptation of “A Song of Ice and Fire” since they already skipped so much and changed so many details. But the overall storyline?

    Maybe it’s good that he told D&D so they stay true to GRRM’s characters. Maybe the show should’ve waited a few years to premiere, so there was a better chance of aligning with the books. Or maybe they should’ve added more seasons to the show, with two covering each book so they cover more ground and give more time to finish the story. Maybe, maybe, maybe. But plenty of GoT viewers don’t even read the books, and may not even pick them up until the series is finished, if at all.

    It sucks that book readers are going to be confused by book-to-TV-to-book changes when “The Winds of Winter” finally arrives, but it’s not like Robert Kirkman’s comic book is being slavishly adapted for TV either. Not at all. And both writers are credited as executive producers on their respective shows — which have helped to make them super rich — so they do have responsibilities to their showrunners, as opposed to acting like they are competing with them.

    By the way, slightly off topic but also from the Rolling Stone interview, here’s RK defending the controversial Season 6 finale cliffhanger:

    Did it surprise you when people were up in arms over the recent season finale?
    We knew that people might be upset, but come on! Everybody wants to see what happened. That’s what a cliffhanger is. I’ll probably get crucified for this, but I feel like there’s a culture of instant gratification now: Netflix, social media, everything is on demand at all times. Nothing is withheld. You can’t do 52 episodes a year. It’s just not feasibly possible. If you can do something that has people talking about your show in that gap between seasons, that’s great. We just ask that if you’ve enjoyed the show so far, just know, Season Seven is going to be pretty great.

    It remains to be seen whether showrunner Gimple stuck with Kirkman’s comic book storyline on that cliffhanger reveal or not.

    Anyway, where do you stand on all of this? Would you, as Kirkman or GRRM, share your end game plan with the showrunners or tell them to make it up so you can keep your secrets for the page?

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  • ‘Walking Dead’ Showrunner & Steven Yeun Explain Point of That Glenn Storyline

    He’s aliiiiiiiive! It took “Talking Dead,” alongside showrunner Scott M. Gimple, who came up with this idea.

    Steven told “Talking Dead” host Chris Hardwick he felt “relieved,” “very grateful,” and “amazed at the response,” admitting “it’s kind of been overwhelming.” He felt bad that he couldn’t say anything to anyone about what happened. How did he feel about what happened, and the direction of Glenn’s story? Steven took a heroic angle, saying, “It proves that this world still can take that story of the good guy winning sometimes. I really like the fact that it’s not this bent of always seeking out something miserable on television … but really accepting the fact that sometimes good guys survive.”


    Scott Gimple further explained why they went with this Glenn death fake-out idea. “The story we were telling was one of uncertainty,” he said. When people leave the walls of Alexandria, they don’t have cell phones and you don’t know what happens. “I think it was important to do a story this year about uncertainty and then the audience would share the uncertainty that the characters have.” He wanted us to be on the same page as Glenn’s “wife” Maggie (Lauren Cohan), who was shown in Episode 5 not being sure what happened to Glenn.

    Gimple didn’t put it this way, but part of the reasoning had to be so fans wouldn’t do what they usually do and blame the “stupid” characters for not having the same amount of knowledge as the audience. For once, we all had close to the same amount of intel, although we as audience mewrunner-and-steven-yeun-explain-point-glenn-storylinembers got to see the Dumpster scenes, back in Episode 3 and again in Episode 7, and Maggie did not.

    Chris Hardwick did most of the talking to defend the Glenn storyline, attempting to respond to critics of the fake-out while only sharing tweets and responses from people who were happy with the plot.

    Gimple said he loved the passionate reaction from fans. “I think it’s wonderful. It is a dream come true to provide a collective experience, to provide something that was around when I was a kid. … You could talk to a stranger about TV. … There’s been a lot of conversation about this and that’s exciting. It makes the world just a little bit smaller.” Steven Yeun echoed that, saying he liked the idea that they could have that shared experience together. “You realize in that moment that you have affected a lot of people at once, and that’s something that you don’t really see that often anymore.”

    It is nice to bond with strangers on the Internet (not in a creepy way) but Gimple can’t do anything like this again or he’ll be The Showrunner Who Cried Wolf.


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  • ‘Walking Dead’ Showrunner Scott Gimple Promises Answers About (SPOILER)

    It’s been a tense couple of days for fans of “The Walking Dead,” as they try to figure out just what on earth happened during Sunday night’s episode, and what it means for a certain beloved original character. But according to showrunner Scott M. Gimple, fans should know that answers are indeed on their way.

    The events that unfolded during the episode, “Thank You,” seemed, at first, pretty straightforward: Glenn and Nicholas found themselves trapped on top of a dumpster, surrounded by walkers; Nicholas panicked and shot himself in the head, taking Glenn down with him as his body fell; Glenn was eaten alive by the hungry horde. But an ambiguous statement from Gimple that was read on fan show “Talking Dead” immediately after the episode aired called that sequence of events into question, with a cryptic promise that fans “will see Glenn, some version of Glenn, or parts of Glenn again, either in flashback or in the current story, to help complete the story.”

    Naturally, this confused a lot of people (this recapper included), and led to wide speculation about Glenn’s true fate — and how fair it was for producers to toy with fans about it, especially if the “death” was a fakeout. Now, in an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Gimple has attempted to clear the air, explaining that he released that statement in part to help mitigate confusion (um, good try?), and said that he feared that “silence, for some reason, might be looked upon as saying something unto itself.”

    Gimple also blamed our culture’s need for immediate answers and overly-detailed discussion for people’s upset reactions to Sunday’s episode, comparing it to stopping a movie between reels to ask the audience questions before continuing the film.

    “It is this big movie, it’s this whole piece,” he said of “The Walking Dead”‘s current season. ” … We give people something to look forward to every week, and in the meantime I have to worry about people freaking out about the twists and turns of stories.”

    I’d argue that it was Gimple himself who stoked a lot of the outrage fire with that ridiculous “Talking Dead” statement, since many fans (again, myself included) already had their own interpretation of the episode, and his comment only muddled things further. But regardless of how you feel about it, Gimple said that all would soon be revealed — fans just have to be patient.

    “I would just encourage people to watch the entire thing because all of their questions will be answered,” Gimple told the Times. “It’s absolutely cool that they’re reacting any way at this point, but there are a whole lot more chapters, a whole lot more reels in the movie to watch to get the whole picture.”

    [via: Los Angeles Times]

    Photo credit: Charles Sykes/Invision/AP

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  • Did (SPOILER) Really Die on ‘The Walking Dead’? Let’s Discuss

    the walking dead, glenn, steven yeunIf you watched The Walking Dead,” you’ve probably already cycled through the five stages of grief once or twice or thrice. But the last stage, acceptance, seems to be where many fans of the show have gotten stuck since then, and according to a couple theories floating around — not to mention the ambiguous words of the show’s producers — there’s a good reason for that.

    For the first time this season, I received an advance screener of this week’s episode, and was able to watch and write my recap before the show aired on Sunday night. When I saw what happened to Glenn, it seemed pretty obvious to me that he was dead. After all, Nicholas — who had just shot himself in the head — had taken Glenn down with him as he tumbled off that dumpster and into the hungry herd below them. Then, there was a fairly gratuitous shot of the walkers feasting on Glenn’s innards, pulling organs out left and right and sending lots of blood oozing, as Glenn screamed in horror and pain, his face awash with anguish as he watched himself be consumed.

    Except.

    Except that, apparently, that maybe wasn’t what I saw at all. As I tuned in to “Talking Dead” after last night’s episode aired, eager to see what people were saying about Glenn’s death, and perhaps to hear from the man who played him, Steven Yeun, I was greeted by a grim Chris Hardwicke, who kept talking about “what happened,” never explicitly saying that Glenn had died. Glenn was notably missing from the show’s “In Memoriam” segment, and Yeun was suspiciously absent from the guest couch. And then, showrunner Scott M. Gimple sent over a statement about the episode that made things even more confusing.

    “Dear fans of ‘The Walking Dead,’” Gimple’s statement began, “this is a hard story to tell, and when we were planning to tell it we knew our friends over at ‘Talking Dead’ would be talking to you about it. And knowing you’d all be talking, and feeling, and commiserating, I knew we should say something about it, lest our silence say something we didn’t mean to say, or not say. So I will say this: In some way, we will see Glenn, some version of Glenn, or parts of Glenn again, either in flashback or in the current story, to help complete the story.”

    Gimple’s strange statement implies that there were numerous ways to read last night’s episode, and that Glenn could, in fact, still be alive. It never once crossed my mind that what happened was ambiguous at all — it seemed pretty clear that Glenn was dead, especially since the show made great pains to use that clever “dumbass” callback to season one, effectively bringing his character full-circle. But apparently, there’s something else from season one that could also be in play here: the use of zombie guts to disguise the smell of humans.

    The device has been deployed twice now on the show, first when Glenn and Rick drench themselves in innards to escape from a horde in Atlanta back in season one, and then again, when Carol did the same in the season five premiere. It could, theoretically, be possible for Glenn to have survived his harrowing ordeal if Nicholas’s body landed on top of him when they fell into the waiting walkers, and the zombies were feasting on Nicholas instead of him. Then, soaked in Nicholas’s blood, he’d go undetected by the zombies; all he’d have to do it wait for them to shamble off somewhere else, then he could slide out and make his escape.

    I see a couple problems with this version of events: First, yes, Nicholas killed himself, so he was already dead when he took Glenn down with him. But were those few seconds enough time for his blood to change from human-smelling to (un)dead-smelling, enough so that that would effectively mask and protect Glenn? I’m not so sure. Then, of course, there’s the fact that a horde of hungry walkers probably aren’t going to stop chowing down on Nicholas’s dead body immediately after they reach its end, but before Glenn’s body begins — and there’s bound to a few undead folks who continue eating even when Nicholas is no more, right?

    If you can suspend your disbelief enough to discount both of those scenarios (and considering you’re a fan of a show about zombies, there’s a good chance you’re already skilled at belief suspension), then sure, it’s possible that Glenn’s alive. And the fact that he’s one of the core characters of the series would certainly indicate that it wasn’t quite his time to go yet. After all, we haven’t lost a member of our season one gang since Andrea’s death way back in season three; at this point, anyone from those early days is considered sacred, and their death would send enormous shockwaves not only through the fan community, but through the rest of the survivors on the show.

    Therein lies the problem, though. We as viewers have already started to process, in some way, that Glenn is gone. Pulling a 180 now would cause a lot of whiplash, and honestly, I’d feel a little cheated. Sure, I liked Glenn a lot, and thought what happened to him was just plain stupid. I’ll miss him, if he’s truly dead. But these characters cannot be completely untouchable; there’s no drama if every one of our original survivors is never truly in danger.

    But more so, this forced ambiguity has really just put Gimple and co. in the impossible situation of getting fans’ hopes up to the point that they’re going to be incredibly dashed no matter what happens. If Glenn’s death was a fakeout, then they’ve already shown their hand, and the suspense and surprise of a potential return is ruined. (Similarly, if he somehow makes a Sophia-style cameo as a zombie, again, the drama of that moment is lost and gone forever.) And if he’s truly gone, they’ve just created false hope in an attempt to drum up controversy.

    There’s been a big show made of the fact that next week’s episode is a 90-minute installment, and one of my Facebook friends cynically suggested that perhaps they’ve been so vague about Glenn because they want viewers to tune in live, and see whether he makes his big return (in whatever form that takes). My friend may not be wrong. As Alan Sepinwall points out, shows like “Talking Dead” make it pretty much impossible for ambiguity on television these days, since everything is immediately dissected and it’s demanded that the creators explain themselves. (Uh, not that you should stop reading my recaps or anything, though. That type of dissection is good!) Gimple and co. may be hemming and hawing here because they don’t want to discourage people from watching altogether. But their non-explanation explanation is maddening; those who didn’t question what they saw now don’t trust their own judgment (that would be me), and those who’ve been desperately searching for an alternative answer are still scratching their heads.

    Whatever happens next week (or whenever Glenn’s fate is next addressed), I’ll still continue to tune in, because I’m invested in these characters and am curious to see what happens to them. But this week’s debate may change just how much I enjoy it.

    Photo credit: Gene Page/AMC

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