The Walking Dead was once the most highly rated, popular show on TV. Then, after a very specific moment and one particularly upsetting character death, AMC’s stylish zombie show suffered a spectacular fall from grace. It never really recovered. Yet it never really died. Fans would know by now that no less than three different spin-offs are being planned to keep the apocalyptic series alive and today we get a close look at the first cab off the rank with The Walking Dead: Dead City trailer.
The clunky name might not inspire confidence but this is shaping up to be quite a big production for AMC and a good test run to see how much of an appetite for The Walking Dead’s mainline show remains. The TWD universe has already been set with current spin-offs Fear the Walking Dead and The Walking Dead: World Beyond. Yet, only one of them had some great moments (Fear) while the other (Beyond) was consistently awful and poorly acted.
Tales from The Walking Dead, an anthology-style series based on the TWD Universe, had some great moments as well, but there’s been nothing on this scale. That is, The Walking Dead set for the crumbled empire of New York City, centred around two fan favourites (Lauren Cohen as Maggie and Jeffrey Dean Morgan as Negan) with a brand new plotline and, it appears, new kinds of zombies.
The main show may have ended its 11-season run last year but there are no signs of slowing down what Robert Kirkman created with AMC over a decade ago. This new property, as above, follows Maggie and Negan as they rush to Manhattan in search of Maggie’s kidnapped son, Hershel. Dean’s involvement as Negan is obviously the wild card here and then you had the fact that the baseball bat-wielding anti-hero did, after all, murder Maggie’s husband – Hersel’s father – in the most bloodthirsty way possible.
While their relationship has certainly improved, considering everything that has happened, there’s little doubt The Walking Dead: Dead City will mostly be driven by the ongoing tension between the two antagonists as they work together on what looks like a search-and-rescue mission. From the trailer, Manhattan looks deliciously chaotic with hordes of undead and human villains to deal with.
There are some nice Escape from New York and I Am Legend vibes coming from the trailer. Eli Jorne (Wilfred) serves as showrunner for the limited series, which is only six episodes long and is just the first in a string of spin-offs from the main The Walking Dead series. Joining the cast is Gaius Charles (Friday Night Lights), Karina Ortiz (The Long Road Ahead), Jonathan Higginbotham (The Blacklist), Pallavi Sastry (Blue Bloods), and Logan Kim (Ghostbusters: Afterlife).
I’ve also read that the child actor who played Hershel in The Walking Dead will be recast given the actor would have aged out of the role already. Kim, who is mentioned above, will now be portraying Maggie’s son.
The trailer not only illustrates how stylishly dark the series will be but it also looks like we’ll see some new, twisted designs when it comes to walkers. At the end of The Walking Dead: Dead City trailer we see Maggie in what looks like a fighting pit about to battle several walkers that look like they’ve been amalgamated into one.
After Dead City is done with its limited run, we only have two other TWD spin-offs to look forward to. The next one, due for a 2024 release date, will be focusing on Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) and Michonne (Danai Gurira), while the final one will be focusing on Daryl Dixon (Norman Reedus) and potential Carol Peletier (Melissa McBride).
The Walking Dead: Dead City is scheduled to premiere on AMC (so in Australia, Binge) on June 18, 2023. Watch the full-length trailer above.
