As The Walking Dead marches toward its season 11 conclusion before it breaks up into a series of spin-offs that include pairing Daryl and Carol for one show and now Maggie and Negan for another, we have yet to hear anything official about the return of Rick Grimes, who is supposed to be making his own spin-off movie.
At this point, it has been a very long time since any substantial update, and I wanted to go through the timeline of where we are with The Walking Dead’s Rick Grimes movies, based on the few updates we’ve gotten over the years. Even if the pandemic threw a wrench into things, we are getting into somewhat goofy territory with how long this is taking to manifest. So, here we go:
November 2018 – Andrew Lincoln films his final episode as Rick Grimes where he seemingly blows himself up on a bridge to save all his friends, but is later found injured and whisked away by a CRM helicopter. The exact same night this happened, AMC announced the concept of a series of Rick Grimes movies, starting with one written by Scott Gimple.
July 2019 – It took all the way until July 2019 to get a teaser trailer for the Rick Grimes movie, which debuted at SDCC, revealing that the movie would take place in CRM HQ in Philadelphia:
March 2020 – Danai Gurira leaves The Walking Dead, filming her final episode as Michonne as she leaves with a fresh lead about Rick being alive, implying she may appear in the films.
October 2020 – Scott Gimple tells Collider that pre-production is ongoing on a movie trilogy, and COVID has been an issue:
"We're following the same general plan but movies take a little longer and we're playing with it in all sorts of directions," said Gimple. "And then, the pandemic happened, which gave us the opportunity or the necessity to do that We're still doing that. Andrew [Lincoln] is super involved. [Robert Kirkman] is super involved. It really is proceeding. It's just that current circumstances have given us a little extra time that we seem to need anyways. We really want to do it right."
April 2021 – Andrew Lincoln tells SFX he’s not filming at this point:
"I’m not filming at the moment," he said. "I’m still very much in lockdown. We’re very excited about how, at the first available opportunity, we’re going to go into production – there’s talk of it being spring. I can’t wait to get those cowboy boots."
July 2021 – Spring comes and goes, and Greg Nicotero is asked by Comicbook.com about the movies:
"I wish I knew, and I wish I could say [when it's happening]. I've read a variety of drafts of the scripts over the last few months. They're really making sure that they get it right. I don't know, because I'm always in my head going, 'Okay, so Walking Dead is wrapping up [in Season 11], but now they're talking about all these spin-offs and all these movies and all this and all that.
December 2021 – The Walking Dead World Beyond finale airs, with the series making references to Rick’s time at CRM, and introduces the concept of “fast zombies” in its final moments.
February 2022 – Andrew Lincoln is spotted in Atlanta where The Walking Dead films with Norman Reedus, implying he may be there to film a cameo for the end of The Walking Dead season 11, which could be an onramp to his movies.
And that’s it, that’s the full timeline which has been going on since 2018 at this point. I maintain The Walking Dead should just give Rick a show instead of doing some sort of long-gestating movie trilogy, but we’ll see what they come up with. At this point, even after all this time, very little seems set in stone.
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