The Walking Dead
The Walking Dead continues to expand in surprising ways, as it’s about to blossom past the original, ten-season show and its spin-off, Fear the Walking Dead. The Walking Dead: World Beyond is a second spin-off coming in 2020, and at least one Rick Grimes movie has been announced with an eye toward a trilogy.
But that may not be all. A long-rumored side project has been a possible spin-off or film focused on Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s Negan, which would cover his backstory. It’s not as random as it may sound, as it’s something that Robert Kirkman himself wrote in the miniseries “Here’s Negan,” a character that he seems uniquely in love with (Kirkman once said he couldn’t bring himself to kill Negan as the Savior war ended).
Jeffrey Dean Morgan was asked about the Rick Grimes movies on Twitter, and unprompted, brought up the potential for his own movies, which he really seems to want to make happen.
“I have my own thing for POSSIBLE films. I’m still holding out for Negan story... based on [Robert Kirkman’s] graphic novel. I’d LOVE to film that. LOVE LOVE LOVE.”
That’s about as emphatic as you get, and it seems like a pretty easy project for AMC to greenlight, as it would require really only one main star, Morgan, and not some sort of action blockbuster budget like Rick’s films. It would essentially be the equivalent of 2-3 extra episodes of The Walking Dead, more or less.
The Walking Dead
Here’s Negan is a 16 chapter story that shows what Negan’s life was like before the zombie takeover and then up until we meet him as the leader of the Saviors. There are parts with his wife, Lucille, and we learn how she died. The only other active TWD characters who would appear would be Dwight and Sherry, I believe, and we see how Negan’s whole “beat someone to death with a bat in front of everyone” system got started.
I don’t think it’s exactly the most compelling bit of Kirkman’s work to date, but would I watch a two hour Negan movie that adapted this? I mean, sure, why not, and this seems like a no-brainer for AMC, particularly with Negan’s expanded role on the show in the wake of Rick leaving. Kirkman has even hinted that it’s not out of the realm of possibility that even with TWD over on his end, it’s possible he could return for some Negan adventures, as the fate of Negan is unknown by the time series ends.
We’ll see if anything comes of this. Generally speaking it seems like AMC is more focused on moving forward through time and expanding the TWD universe to new characters, so a Negan prequel doesn’t quite fit with that. And yet this doesn’t seem like it would be all that much trouble to make, and Morgan is clearly dying to do it, so I don’t see the harm.
Follow me on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Pre-order my new sci-fi novel Herokiller, and read my first series, The Earthborn Trilogy, which is also on audiobook.
