Here’s How ‘The Walking Dead’ Is Making Sure No One Knows Who Negan Killed

Earlier today, our own Dustin Rowles wrote about the ways AMC is ensuring no one ruins The Negan Mystery (my favorite Hardy Boys novel) before The Walking Dead returns for season seven this fall. The aptly-titled spoiler website The Spoiling Dead has already been hit “with a cease and desist letter, threatening to sue under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) if the site continued to speculate on who would die.” So I probably shouldn’t expand on my theory that Negan is actually three child zombies in a trench coat, huh?

The level of security on The Walking Dead set is intense. Everything’s being kept a secret, and according to the Hollywood Reporter, “Each of the 11 cast members involved in the [final scene of season six] have already filmed a death scene. The Walking Dead producers and the episode director will then work with the show’s editors and pick the character who does indeed die.” This is a relatively rare, but not unheard of practice. Multiple endings for the two-part The Simpsons episode “Who Shot Mr. Burns” were animated, in case one of them accidentally leaked. (Hopefully it’s not Maggie in both scenarios.)

Season seven of The Walking Dead will pick up immediately with Negan’s deadly swing, and as [Jeffrey Dean] Morgan said, “you’ll see who was at the end of that bat and what happened from there,” while series creator/EP Robert Kirkman has said that Negan’s victim is “beloved to everyone.” (Via)

“Immediately” isn’t soon enough for impatient fans who’d rather look at a blurry drone photo, just so they can scream “FIRST,” than see the episode the way it’s meant to be presented. What would Henry Rollins think?

(via The Hollywood Reporter)

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