The Walking Dead Is Getting An Insane Number Of Spinoffs
The Walking Dead franchise is set to get a lot bigger with a ton of spin-off stories either already going or in the works as we speak
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The Walking Dead, when it first came out, didn’t seem like the kind of show that would inspire a number of different spin-offs or even a larger franchise. After all, it was the story of a small group of people trying to survive a zombie apocalypse while also not killing each other in the process. But more than a decade later the original show has spawned other shows and projects. It’s like a zombie hoard in this way. It just keeps growing as it moves, picking up more and more in the group along the way. The latest rumor, coming from insider Daniel Richtman, has it that there could be up to 10 more The Walking Dead spin-offs coming down the pike.
From this rumor, it isn’t totally clear which these ten exact shows will be, but we already have a sense of where the franchise is rolling with a number of different projects either already out there or in the works. Some projects are going to be spin-offs from characters already well-established on the show. The timelines on these appear to be all over the place with some acting as prequels while others will be offshoots of the original story. And The Walking Dead folks have also embraced the idea that a much bigger world exists here, that plenty of others have survived the zombie overtaking and have their own stories to tell.
Two shows that have already been around for a couple of years now are Fear the Walking Dead and The Walking Dead: The World Beyond. Fear deals with the beginning of the zombie apocalypse in a totally different part of the country than the original show. That’s been on six seasons now with some crossover with the original. The World Beyond just debuted last fall and exists in a timeline about a decade after the original takeover. It was met with mixed reviews from critics and, if anything, was more a spiritual successor to the original.
There are plenty of other The Walking Dead projects in the works as well which wouldn’t bring us to the ten total that Richtman mentions, but start to get close. First off, there’s a planned movie that looks like it will culminate the story from the original show. It appears Andrew Lincoln’s Rick Grimes will be returning for this one after he was ferried off two seasons ago.
Plus there’s a Daryl and Carol show in the works as well which will follow the two popular characters after The Walking Dead wraps up. Finally, Tales from the Walking Dead is in the works which will add more context and backstory to the show’s original characters.
But what else should we expect from The Walking Dead and what other directions are there for the franchise? It’s a non-insular universe and plenty of characters have been introduced over the years, with good and evil. Mining stories from past characters, including prequels that detail how they became the person we met up within the series, could be one direction.
Season 11 of The Walking Dead just began filming in February will a planned release later this year. It’s likely when that season hits more confirmed news around spin-offs begins dropping.
