SDCC: Rick & Michonne Walking Dead Limited Series Announced, Rick-Centered Films Shelved

Andrew Lincoln and Danai Gurira are returning to the Walking Dead in a new limited series as Lincoln’s Rick Grimes-led films are on ice. Deadline reports that during the Walking Dead panel at San Diego Comic-Con, it was announced that the two stars will reprise the roles as Rick and Michonne for a new limited series that will wrap up their respective characters’ story arcs within the zombie-infested universe.

The series will run six episodes and launch next year, with Scott Gimple serving as showrunner. Gimple is the Chief Content Officer of the Walking Dead Universe at AMC. Lincoln also confirmed that the trio of films, first announced after Lincoln exited the series in 2018, will not be moving forward.

The last we saw Rick, he was rescued by helicopters after the survivors assumed he’d died after blowing up a bridge to hold off a zombie horde during season nine. Michonne last appeared in season 10 and, upon learning Rick may have survived, had set off to find him.

The limited series is described by Deadline as follows:

“The latest TWD spinoff will present 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?”

The Walking Dead is halfway through its 11th and final season, with the first of the final set of episodes set to premiere on October 2nd, 2022.