Will AMC’s ‘The Walking Dead’ Universe Expand With A China Spin-Off?

AMC

The Hollywood Reporter published an excerpt from Robert Kirkman’s The Walking Dead: Typhoon, a novel set for release this fall from author Wesley Chu that is set in China in Robert Kirkman’s The Walking Dead universe. The excerpt itself introduces three characters, two Chinese and one American, living in China in the aftermath of the zombie outbreak. Within the excerpt itself, the novel doesn’t add any new wrinkles to the universe aside from different characters and a new location. In fact, the novel also begins about six months after the apocalypse, close to when The Walking Dead comics and television series begins.

The novel itself, however, allows Robert Kirkman to expand the universe and fill us in on what is happening in other parts of the world outside of America as the outbreak wipes out most of the population. It appears from the excerpt that China suffers a similar fate — half of China’s population perished within the first few weeks, and most of the rest had died in the subsequent months. For The Walking Dead junkies, the novel will obviously be a must read, but others may be wondering if, with the novel, Kirkman is floating the idea of expanding The Walking Dead universe in television form, as well. With a second spin-off coming next year and a series of Rick Grimes movies, is there room left in the television landscape for yet another series?

China, after all, is the second biggest market on the planet, and The Walking Dead has long been a huge global hit. From that perspective, it might make sense to expand into China, as so many Hollywood movies have, in order to take advantage of the market, which regularly provides as much box-office dollars to American films as America does. Moreover, early in its run, The Walking Dead was apparently the most watched TV show in China, where the idea of zombies themselves in any medium was new to the population.

Alas, however, expanding into China wouldn’t provide the AMC series with a broader audience in China. In recent years, censors in China have banned not just The Walking Dead, but most American television shows, so it doesn’t appear that China is a viable market for AMC. However, the rest of the world still may be interested in a China-set The Walking Dead, but if the book is adapted for the small screen, it seems more likely that it would work as a one-off movie, which would fit into the expanding The Walking Dead universe just as well. In fact, based on the excerpt and author Wesley Chu’s track record, a Typhoon movie could be very appealing for not just AMC audiences in America, but Netflix audiences around the world in an arrangement similar to the one that AMC has with Netflix for the Breaking Bad movie. It would make perfect sense, and the novel itself could be an inexpensive way to test the waters for just such a project.

The Walking Dead: Typhoon will be released on October 1st, ahead of the tenth season premiere of The Walking Dead on AMC.

(Via THR)