Andrew Lincoln to Revisit The Walking Dead Role in Multiple Films (Spoilers)

Warning: Spoilers follow for this week’s episode of The Walking Dead.

Andrew Lincoln’s run on The Walking Dead as a series regular is at an end, but he is still set to appear in the show’s universe. Deadline reports that a series of three AMC Studios original films starring Lincoln as Rick Grimes are set to be released, written by Scott Gimple and beginning production as soon as next year.

The announcement comes after this week’s episode, which saw Rick seemingly mortally wounded and sent off by the helicopter that Jadis has previously been in contact with, sent to an unknown locale. The first film will follow Rick and reveal where he was taken, and what new challenges will face him there.

The move allows Lincoln to spend the time with his family at home in England as he’s been wanting to do, as a production shoot of sixty days is far less time-taxing than the nine month shoots for TWD. Lincoln has played the role for the entirety of the show’s ten year run.

The films will be the first projects for a plan to branch out the Walking Dead including more films, specials, series, and digital content. Gimple said that some of the projects will relate to the content we’ve already seen in The Walking Dead and Fear the Walking Dead, while others will be standalone stores.

“We have a lot on the horizon – starting with a new epic featuring one of the greatest leading actors in television history and one of the best people I’ve ever met,” said Gimple. “These films are going to be big evolutions of what we’ve been doing on the show, with the scope and scale of features. We’re starting with the first part of the continuing story of Rick Grimes, and there is much more on the way, featuring yet-unseen worlds of The Walking Dead and faces from the show’s past, as well as new characters we hope to become favorites, told by TWD veterans and emerging voices. We want to break new ground with different, distinct stories, all part of the same world that’s captured our imagination for nearly a decade of the Dead.”