The Walking Dead has come a long way since the original days of Rick Grimes and his found family of fellow zombie apocalypse survivors, expanding into a massive TV franchise with numerous spinoff series. Although he left the show during the beginning of Season 9, The Walking Dead universe recently brought Andrew Lincoln back to the role of Rick in the sequel miniseries, The Ones Who Live. The series finally gave answers to the fans as to where Rick had been all that time and finally gave him his long-awaited reunion with Michonne, but those answers were originally meant to come much sooner. The original plan was to have Rick return with his own trilogy of films, but it ultimately didn’t pan out. Despite all the obstacles that were faced in trying to get the films off the ground, the remainder of Rick’s story did end up being told, but not in the same way that had so many of the fans excited.

There’s no doubt that a theatrical film, let alone a trilogy, would’ve been a massive deal for The Walking Dead franchise. With all the hype that was initially built up around it, what could have possibly gone wrong for it to go from big-screen ambitions to a small-screen release?

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Every Series in The Walking Dead Franchise (so far)
Number of Episodes
IMDb Score

The Walking Dead (2010-2022)
177

Fear the Walking Dead (2015-2023)
13

World Beyond (2020-2021)
20

Tales of the Walking Dead (2022)
10

Dead City (2023-present)
12

Daryl Dixon (2023-present)
18

The Ones Who Live (2024)
6

More Tales From the Walking Dead Universe (in development)
TBA
TBD

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When it was announced that Andrew Lincoln would be departing from The Walking Dead during the early episodes of Season 9, many of the fans were understandably shocked and confused. Seeing how Rick was essentially the main protagonist of the series, many began to wonder not only how it would handle the character’s departure, but how it would carry on with the remaining storylines from the comic books without his participation in them. Seeing how much the show had deviated from its source material already at that point, it miraculously managed to move forward without him, but it did take a while for many fans to get over the feeling of his absence. Unlike Kevin Costner in Yellowstone Lincoln’s exit from The Walking Dead wasn’t due to any behind-the-scenes drama or creative conflict, it was something much more personal. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Lincoln admitted that having to spend half a year in Georgia for eight full seasons of TV had gotten in the way of his home life in England, citing his reason for leaving as wanting to spend more time with his wife and children.

I have two young children, and I live in a different country, and they become less portable as they get older. It was that simple. It was time for me to come home.

Luckily for the fans, both Lincoln and executive producer Scott M. Gimple made it clear that although Rick’s story had reached its end within the original series, it would not be the last that they would see of the character. Rather than keeping him for three more seasons, the initial alternative to continuing Rick’s story was going to be done in a way that had the potential to be something much greater than anything that could have been done on TV.

Rick Grimes’ Return Was Originally Meant to Be a Trilogy of Films

Originally Meant For TV, Universal Set Them Up For a Theatrical Outing

Everything Andrew Lincoln Has Done Since The Walking Dead
Medium
Role

Penguin Bloom (2020)
Film
Cameron Bloom

A Christmas Carol (2020)
Stage Play at the Old Vic Theater
Ebenezer Scrooge

Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities (2022)
TV series (1 episode)
Edgar Bradley

The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live

A Better Paradise Volume One: An Aftermath (2024)
Podcast series
Dr. Mike Tyburn (voice)

The fifth episode of Season 9 sent Rick off in a literal blaze of glory, blowing up the bridge that he had led the walker herd over to, apparently sacrificing himself and leading everyone who witnessed it to believe him dead. When he was shown to have survived, being rescued and carried off by Anne in a helicopter, the fans began to wonder what was next for him. Immediately after the episode aired, when questioned by host Chris Hardwick on the live Talking Dead aftershow, Scott Gimple revealed that Rick would be next appearing in his very own film trilogy.

Describing the trilogy as “an epic story told over years,” Gimple claimed that the films would “expand the world” through different corners and place Rick in different situations. The announcement also described the trilogy as being AMC original films that would air on the network but still carry the “scope of feature films”.

The following year, the production received a major upgrade, as it was announced that the trilogy would instead be released in theaters under the distribution of Universal Pictures. Despite all the ambition and preparation that had gone into an attempt to bring the world of The Walking Dead to the big screen during pre-production, the trilogy unfortunately never materialized, with its cancelation being announced in 2022. Many of the story elements that would have been in the films, however, did manage to survive to some extent by being retooled for the six-episode miniseries, The Ones Who Live. But what could have possibly gone wrong for the films to get as unfairly canceled as they were?

Why Was The Rick Grimes Movie Trilogy Reworked Into a Miniseries?

The COVID Pandemic Had a Drastic Impact on Production

Every Episode of The Walking Dead franchise, including The Ones Who Live, can now be streamed on AMC+
Daryl Dixon and Dead City are set to premiere their third and second seasons (respectively) later in the year on AMC.

As it turns out, there may be more than one reason behind the film’s cancelation. First, there’s a very strong chance that the decision to give the trilogy a theatrical release may have been deemed too risky by the studio. While shows like The Simpsons and Sex and the City enjoyed financial success with their respective films at the box office in the past, recent attempts with Bob’s Burgers and even The Sopranos, two shows that are considered to be of equally iconic and legendary standing within the TV landscape, failed to make a similar impact. With the progress of sequels being contingent on the box-office gross of their predecessors, there was no guarantee that the other two films would be able to get made at all; no matter how popular a TV show may be, ever since COVID, it’s not always a sure thing that a movie based on it will be able to gross the amount of money needed to break even. Speaking of COVID, the effect that the pandemic had on the entertainment

While the pandemic didn’t do much to stall the production of Seasons 10 and 11, it created a major issue in the development of the films. The pandemic caused a major shift in how the industry now looks at film and TV as two different mediums and which stories are best suited to each. Despite the upheaval caused by COVID, the sudden availability of Danai Gurira after leaving the show herself after Season 10 gave Gimple the chance to rework Michonne into Rick’s story and give the fans their long-awaited reunion. During the premiere of The Ones Who Live, Gimple told ScreenRant about the elements that led to the film’s cancelation.

To tell you the truth, the way it all happened, it was kismet that it all came together like this because we really love working together. But we couldn’t have predicted the way the world turned, the way the landscape turned, the way the availabilities happened, a lot of it was out of left field.

As much as Walking Dead fans would have no doubt loved to see how the world would’ve appeared and translated onto the big screen in a theatrical film, the fact that Rick’s story continued in a miniseries feels like it was a more appropriate way to handle it. While a Walking Dead movie may not be a complete impossibility in the future, with all the spinoffs that have allowed for a greater expansion of the world and its characters, the realm of television is where it all belongs best right now.