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The Future Of The Walking Dead
Reedus on How Much Longer Daryl Could Ride
♦ The second half of The Walking Dead season eight isn’t back until February but it doesn’t look like it is going away anytime soon as Variety have just reported…
Norman Reedus said at Variety’s Entertainment Summit at CES 2018 recently “I could play Daryl Dixon forever.”
But of course, even though The Walking Dead has proven to be a huge success for AMC — which has turned the franchise into a “365-days-per-year” fan experience — it eventually will have to come to an end, said Charlie Collier, president and general manager of AMC, SundanceTV and AMC Studios. The show is currently in the middle of its 8th season.
“We talk about it all the time — how do you make sure it goes as long as it can, while still being a responsible business?” Collier said. “We talk about whenever it ends, that it’s Smithsonian-worthy.” He added that “this is a fun ride for everyone involved” but acknowledged that “it’s a far more expensive show in every way than it was on Day One.”
Heading into production season 9 of “TWD,” Reedus noted that even as the show gets bigger, “down in the field it’s always story first.”
AMC has surrounded “The Walking Dead” with numerous offshoots beyond the TV show on the network to build on fan enthusiasm for the show, Collier noted. It has launched VR, AR, “Ride with Norman Reedus,” aftershow “Talking Dead,” and spinoff “Fear the Walking Dead,” will giving fans a change to catch up on past seasons on Netflix and watching the current season on AMC Premiere.
“It’s a fully immersive fan experience,” Collier said.
Asked by moderator Variety co-editor-in-chief Andrew Wallenstein about the show’s prospects — given its significant decline in ratings for season 8 — Collier responded that while the “challenges in the industry are real” there’s no position he’d rather be in.
“We have had the No. 1 on television for the last six years,” Collier said. “There’s nobody who does what I do who would not want that.”
Reedus told the standing-room-only crowd at the Variety event — who mobbed him afterward to take pictures with the star — that he’s been to Las Vegas before but never to CES. On arriving in Vegas, Reedus said, he encountered a “Walking Dead” slot machine. He decided to play it and “I won 800 bucks,” he said, to a roar of approval from the audience.
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