The Walking Dead is wasting no time. While the show may have lost arguably two of their biggest stars, Andrew Lincoln and Lauren Cohan; this Sunday, Norman Reedus and Melissa McBride have already been signed up for contracts for a mega-series franchise that could include spinoff shows and movies. Danai Gurira is still in negotiations and this could very well be due to her future within the Marvel Cinematic Universe? I’m just making a guess here.
Regardless of this news, both Reedus and McBride are signed up for another three seasons of The Walking Dead, so they aren’t going anywhere any time soon.
AMC programming president David Madden spoke:
“The deals that we made for Norman and Melissa are franchise deals. Our deals with Norman and Melissa allow us the flexibility to either move them or use them in more than one place, depending on what seems creatively right to Scott and to his partners. We do look at this as a universe where we’re trying to expand into as many different places as the show fits. We think this is a franchise that could live across formats. So, we want to do it carefully; we want to be strategic; we want to try to do it right. But there is a multi-year plan that could include additional series, digital content and specials.”
Madden then added about Gurira:
“She has been very vocal about saying that she loves the show. We love Danai; we love that character. Right now, she’s got a lot of opportunities and she needs to weigh what she feels is best for her. But we certainly would want her on the show as long as she wants to be on it. We really want her to stay. She is an incredibly valuable character and I’m really hoping she stays. Obviously, the lesson of Andy is that the show can survive anybody’s departure if need be but that’s not our goal. The goal is to have Danai continue on whatever basis she can make work, given the other things that she has going on in her life.”
How did you feel about last night’s The Walking Dead?
A girl with too many fandoms to count.
