"The Walking Dead" has developed into one of the biggest franchises on the small screen in the last decade, amassing a huge worldwide fandom. Soon, the adventures featured in the zombie-filled world won’t be limited to television screens and computers. It has been officially announced that the upcoming THE WALKING DEAD movie is going to be a theatrical release, and it’s going to bring back star Andrew Lincoln to play beloved protagonist Rick Grimes.
It was last November, back during Season 9 of “The Walking Dead,” that we first learned about the feature being in development, with executive producer Scott M. Gimple announcing that the story would follow the continuing adventures of Rick Grimes, after he was shown flying away in a helicopter to a mysterious location. At that time, however, the project was envisioned as possibly a TV or streaming service movie, but since then, things have changed. In a bidding war with other interested parties, Universal Pictures was able to strike a deal and will be distributing THE WALKING DEAD film in theatres.
Unfortunately, not much is really known about the plot of the feature, as things are being played very close to the vest (much like all details surrounding the franchise where popular characters can die at any moment). While there have been rumors about actors who may be a part of the project, nobody has been officially confirmed with the exception of Pollyanna McIntosh's Jadis, who was seen flying off with Rick in the aforementioned helicopter.
Even beyond the narrative and characters involved, basic information about THE WALKING DEAD movie is being kept a secret. At this time, we do not know when it will be going into production, when it will be getting released, or, in case you haven’t noticed, what it will actually be called. A teaser video has been released by Universal, but it doesn’t feature anything other than the show’s logo and text noting the return of Rick Grimes. Hopefully it won’t be too much longer until actual footage is cut together for public consumption.
Big screen features coming together while in-canon television shows are on the air don’t come around all that often, which means that THE WALKING DEAD movie should be quite an event. The amount of anticipation for the project should ensure lots of updates and announcements, so stay tuned for more details as they are revealed.
