‘The Walking Dead’ Is Considering A Dramatic Shake-Up In The Near Future

The Walking Dead just wrapped up its seventh season, but within the show, it’s been a little under two years since Rick Grimes woke up from his coma to when Shiva ate that dude’s face off. According to Andrew Lincoln, there’s a “very strong chance” season eight, which begins shooting soon, will likely pick up where “The First Day of the Rest of Your Life” left off. Makes sense. It would be jarring to spend so much time on an “All-Out War” between Alexandria, the Hilltop, and the Kingdom vs. the Saviors, only for the show to be like, “Nah, we’re done with that. Let’s see what Carl looks like as an angsty 20-something!” But a time jump might be in The Walking Dead‘s near-future.

Without giving away specifics, The Walking Dead comic series unexpectedly leaps forward in time in Issue #127 (the show is about a dozen issues behind). Showrunner Scott Gimple won’t say the small-screen adaptation is definitely following creator Robert Kirkman’s lead, but he’s also not ruling it out.

“For the people who read the comics, they’re going to be expecting this,” Gimple told The Hollywood Reporter. “We’re doing the book, we do all sorts of variations on it, and then we do things that are inspired by it and then we change things up with a remix. But I will say there are things that happen in that time jump that are referred to that are super interesting. And thus we might see some of that stuff; it might not be the same sort of jump, or we’ll do that two to five years in real time.” For what it’s worth, the aforementioned “All-Out War” covers the Negan-heavy volumes 20 and 21, so the time jump, were it to happen, probably wouldn’t be until the season eight finale. (It would also be more dramatic than the two months between season six’s “No Way Out” and “The Next World,” when we were introduced to Jesus. Think: years.)

Gimple continued, “I’ve had a general plan for a long time, and invariably when I do that, there are little things that catch and change that plan… We’re definitely going to honor it and do it, but we’re definitely going to have either more of it or possibly do it in a different way.”

Let’s just say pirates are involved (no, really). There should be more of that.

(Via The Hollywood Reporter)

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