The Walking Dead movie script "cooked to perfection" by the pandemic delay

The Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman says the coronavirus pandemic has paradoxically played into their hands because they’ve had the unexpected luxury of being able to “cook the script” for the Rick Grimes spin-off movie until it’s perfect.

Kirkman told The Walking Dead fans during Skybound Entertainment’s Skybound Xpo panel: “There’s tons of stuff going on behind the scenes… I don’t want anyone to think that we’re just kind of waiting around for this pandemic to end.”

According to nme.com he added: “I would say that, if anything, the pandemic is going to make a lot of movies better. I think the Rick Grimes movie chief among them, just because we’re getting a lot more time to cook this thing and make sure it’s perfect.”

The Walking Dead film has been on the cards for two years, ever since British star Andrew Lincoln left the role of Grimes on the post-apocalyptic AMC TV show, and is planned to be the first of a trilogy which follows the exploits of Grimes after he and Anne (Pollyanna McIntosh) were taken away by a Civic Republic Military helicopter in season nine.

Lincoln left the Georgia-based show after eight years as the central, heroic character of Grimes to spend more time with his young family in Britain.

The Walking Dead executive producer David Alpert said the project was “coming along in a big way” and promised, “We have something exciting, unique and different.”

Earlier this year, The Walking Dead showrunner Scott Gimple said the big screen scope of the project meant the drama would be heightened, "and just as we’re going to the movies — and it is the movies proper, suitably wide screen — we’re going to be filling that screen with a brand-new world”.

McIntosh recently told another fans’ panel: “I may or may not be doing a Walking Dead film that Andy [Andrew Lincoln] is involved in, playing Rick. Let’s see what happens.”

Make of that what you will.

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