‘The Walking Dead’ to End With Season 11 in 2022, With ‘Caryl’ Spin-off Series Arriving in 2023

Everyone's favorite zombie apocalypse series ‘The Walking Dead’ is coming to an end in 2022 with an expanded 11th season which will have 24 episodes. But that's not going to be much of a loss to the fans as AMC has also announced a new TWD spinoff series starring fan favorites character Daryl Dixon and Carol Peletier starring Norman Reedus and Melissa McBride.

 

The new series will be created by TWD showrunner Angela Kang and Deadverse chief content officer Scott M. Gimple, that as yet untitled series is scheduled to debut in 2023.

As was announced at this year’s virtual Comic-Con, TWD Season 10 finale will now air as a special episode on October 4 after being delayed in April, due to the pandemic. It was also announced that there will be six additional episodes that will air in 2021 for the current cycle.

 

Season 11, which is also the final season was originally meant to air this year but was delayed due to the pandemic, will now air over two years, and consist of 24 episodes in the total beginning in late 2021.

 

“I look forward to digging in with our brilliant writers, producers, directors, cast and crew to bring this epic final chapter of Robert Kirkman’s story to life for our fans over the next two years,” said Kang, who took over as TWD showrunner from Gimple at the start of Season 9. “The Walking Dead flagship series has been my creative home for a decade and so it’s bittersweet to bring it to an end, but I could not be more excited to be working with Scott Gimple and AMC to develop a new series for Daryl and Carol,” the EP added. “Working with Norman Reedus and Melissa McBride has been a highlight of my career and I’m thrilled that we get to keep telling stories together.”

 

In addition, Gimple is also developing an episodic anthology series currently titled “Tales of the Walking Dead.” The show will feature one-off episodes built around new and existing characters within the “The Walking Dead” universe.

In addition to “The Walking Dead,” AMC also has the companion series “Fear the Walking Dead,” which is set to begin airing its sixth season on Oct. 11. “The Walking Dead: World Beyond,” about the first generation to come of age during the zombie apocalypse, will have its series premiere immediately after “The Walking Dead” on Oct. 4. AMC also continues to air the aftershow “Talking Dead” hosted by Chris Hardwick. AMC and Universal Pictures are currently working on a series of feature films centered on Rick Grimes starring Andrew Lincoln, with Lincoln having played the character for over nine seasons on “The Walking Dead.”

In many ways, even as the series continues to be the biggest thing on AMC, the conclusion of TWD properly makes sense. For one thing, off-screen Kirkman suddenly wrapped up the TWD comics after 193 issues in 2019.

 

“It’s been ten years ‘gone bye;’ what lies ahead are two more to come and stories and stories to tell beyond that,” said Gimple. “What’s clear is that this show has been about the living, made by a passionate cast, the team of writer/producers, producers, and crew, bringing to life the vision put forth by Robert Kirkman in his brilliant comic — and supported by the best fans in the world. We have a lot of thrilling stories left to tell on TWD, and then, this end will be the beginning of more Walking Dead — brand new stories and characters, familiar faces and places, new voices, and new mythologies. This will be a grand finale that will lead to new premieres. Evolution is upon us. ‘The Walking Dead’ lives.”

 

“The Walking Dead” is produced by AMC Studios and executive produced by Gimple, Kang, Kirkman, David Alpert, Gale Anne Hurd, Greg Nicotero, Denise Huth, and Joseph Incaprera.

 

“‘The Walking Dead’ made television history, and is one of those rare creative works that has given life to an entire content universe that is still in the early stages of growing and entertaining both new and established fans,” said Ed Carroll, chief operating officer of AMC Networks. “We can’t wait to bring viewers this expanded final season of ‘The Walking Dead’ over the next two years, and launch the fourth series in the history of the franchise, focused on the beloved Daryl and Carol characters, with the incredibly talented Norman Reedus, Melissa McBride, Angela Kang, and Scott M. Gimple. There really is so much ‘walking’ ahead, in a number of very exciting directions, for this extraordinary creative universe we call ‘The Walking Dead.’”

 

On-screen, leading man Lincoln left two years ago and now Marvel Universe regular Danai Gurira headed off stage, so to speak, in March of this year. While the door was never fully closed on Gurira’s Michonne character, who went looking for Grimes after the wounded one-time Sheriff’s Deputy was spirited off by a mysterious helicopter in the fifth episode of Season 9, it seemed pretty clear that the focus of the series had shifted to CAA repped Reedus and McBride’s characters – even more so with both actors inking lucrative new contracts in recent years.

 

"The Walking Dead" premiered on Halloween night in 2010 as the #1 cable series launch of all time, later surpassed by other AMC series "Fear the Walking Dead," "Better Call Saul" and "Into the Badlands," and is the most-watched series in cable history. It was also the first cable series to become the #1 show in all of television, including broadcast, a rank it held for five consecutive years. In its current 10th season, "The Walking Dead" remains the #1 series on basic cable for the 11th consecutive year. All of the top 73 cable entertainment telecasts for the past decade have been airings of "The Walking Dead."