The Walking Dead: World Beyond, All About AMC’s New Show
Announced way back in 2018, the new series The Walking Dead: World Beyond, took some time, but the ten-episode order came a year later.
The Walking Dead franchise is soon to get a little bit bigger. Announced way back in 2018, the new series The Walking Dead: World Beyond, took some time, but the ten-episode order came a year later. Here is what we know so far about the extended the Walking Dead universe with World Beyond.
Here’s the trailer for The Walking Dead: World Beyond…
The Walking Dead: World Beyond was originally to premiere in April of 2020, but pandemics have a tendency to change things. So now World Beyond is set to premiere October 4, 2020, on AMC and will be immediately following the Season Ten finale of TWD, which also had to be pandemically-postponed.
THE WALKING DEAD: WORLD BEYOND’S PLOT
The Walking Dead: World Beyond will tell the story of a new group of survivors. Unlike The Walking Dead and Fear, this series will follow a group in an already established zombie world, ten years after the beginning of the apocalypse. We won’t be seeing their origin stories but instead, how a first generation of teenagers has grown up during the zombie apocalypse.
Here is AMC’s official description, via TVGUIDE, of The Walking Dead: World Beyond…
“The Walking Dead: World Beyond expands the universe of The Walking Dead, delving into a new mythology and story that follows the first generation raised in a surviving civilization of the post-apocalyptic world. Two sisters along with two friends leave a place of safety and comfort to brave dangers, known and unknown, living and undead, on an important quest. Pursued by those who wish to protect them and those who wish to harm them, a tale of growing up and transformation unfurls across dangerous terrain, challenging everything they know about the world, themselves and each other. Some will become heroes. Some will become villains. But all of them will find the truths they seek.”
The Walking Dead: World Beyond overseer Scott Gimple was able to tease a little more detail about the upcoming show, “There’s a big secret about the Walking Dead universe,” he said at the San Diego Comic-Con via TVGUIDE. “All these years we’ve just seen a tiny sliver of the Walking Dead world. There’s a whole lot of world out there. The big secret is that all along, there have been other civilizations that survived the apocalypse. We saw hints of that in Season 7 of The Walking Dead and again in ‘The End of Everything,’ and now we’re about to show a lot more of the world in a bunch of different projects,” he said.
“These kids could stay where they grew up, in this place of comfort and security, but they leave their home to risk everything for a quest while they are pursued by adult friends on a quest of their own. We will see some of these kids become heroes and others become villains.”
Gimple also added more tidbits at the New York Comic-Con, also via TVGUIDE, “They’ve grown up in the apocalypse,” Gimple explained about the young cast. “They’re aware of walkers. They haven’t interacted with them. They’ve been [living] beyond walls. That makes any journey they need to make incredibly dangerous. They are affected in different ways by what happened. They don’t remember much of a world without walkers. This is the normal world for them, but they’ve been apart from it. They’ve been in safety. There’s a quest aspect to this show. They’re going somewhere. They have to leave this place of safety to put themselves in a position where they have to fight for their survival and what they believe in. It’s a different kind of story in the world of The Walking Dead, and it introduces a new world.”
Another big bite that Gimple revealed is that The Walking Dead: World Beyond story is directly connected to the CRM (Civil Republic Military) group who took away Rick Grimes in a helicopter.
THE CAST
As The Walking Dead: World Beyond is a story about young people, young people have been cast.
Alexa Mansour (Madame Secretary, SEAL Team) and Aliyah Royale (The Red Line) will play the two sisters who find themselves out in the danger-filled world with their two friends.
Nicolas Cantu, Hal Cumpston, Annet Mahendru, and Nico Tortorella have also joined the cast in major roles. Tortorella spoke to the Chicago Tribune about his role, “The show is focusing on a younger generation of people, 10 years post-apocalypse, and I’m kind of the dad in charge. [My character’s] name is Felix and he is very much the protector of a younger generation.”
THE WALKING DEAD: WORLD BEYOND IS TWO AND DONE
While both The Walking Dead and Fear have enjoyed success and long runs, The Walking Dead: World Beyond already has a time-limit stamped to its forehead. Two seasons is all the story will get. 20 episodes, 10 in each.
As Sarah Barnett, president of AMC Networks Entertainment Group and AMC Studios, told Forbes about the spin-off, “It is not imitating The Walking Dead either in substance or form – World Beyond is a two-season closed-ended series that will tell a very specific and distinct story.” Of course, as with many things TWD related, success from the two-season run could always extend the series another season or two.
WHERE IT ALL STARTED
The original series, The Walking Dead, has been both thrilling and upsetting its legion of fans for ten seasons now. It has had many ups and downs, sometimes following the comic that was created by Robert Kirkman. The series was first brought to life by Frank Darabont, who is noted for writing such memorable scripts such as The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile, The Mist (yes, he loves Stephen King), and The Blob. Darabont handed over (or was forced to give up) the reigns to Glen Mazzara, who gave it to Scott M. Gimple, and then Angela King.
The The Walking Dead world also created the first spin-off, Fear The Walking Dead, following a different group of survivors as they first encounter the zombies. This series has run successfully for five seasons. With the success of both shows, TWD and AMC (the network who runs it) has decided to create one more show in the zombie world, this one called The Walking Dead: World Beyond.
