(Photo by AMC)
Updated: September 15, 2023
As TV and movie franchises go, some might think The Walking Dead is in its infancy with only five titles currently available for public consumption. Compare the hours of viewing time available, however, and the franchise looks positively geriatric. The Walking Dead franchise: nearly 252 hours of programming. Harry Potter films, for example: approximately 26 viewing hours (31 if we’re generous and include streaming specials Harry Potter: Hogwarts Tournament of Houses and Harry Potter 20th Anniversary: Return to Hogwarts). The story is similar if you look at the (bulk-wise) fledgling Game of Thrones franchise, too.
Warner Bros. Discovery is chasing TWD’s success with a planned Harry Potter streaming series for its Max service that will retread all of the books previously adapted into films and supersize each into season-long storytelling. The company simultaneously announced another Game of Thrones prequel, as well. Prime Video has its The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power and The Wheel of Time fantasy efforts that could easily spawn new series, while its espionage series Citadel was specifically created as the cornerstone of an international franchise.
In the meantime, AMC’s Walking Dead juggernaut trundles forth with The Walking Dead: Dead City, which concluded its first season in July; The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon , which premiered on September 10; and the Andrew Lincoln and Danai Gurira spin-off, The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live, expected in 2024.
We’ve gathered the Walking Dead titles that have Tomatometer scores to see how they currently rank. TWD: Dead City overtook the original series for the top spot, then Daryl Dixon debuted in the middle of the pack following the series’ season 1 review embargo lift, but more recently has been fighting for No. 1. We’ll see how it fares in coming weeks as more episodes are released — that is, if the series sees enough critical mass on each episode to create episodic scores.
71%
51%
73%
52%
79%
78%
74%
50%
74%
57%
46%
32%
70%
The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon: Season 1
(2023)
premieres on Sunday, September 10 on AMC, streaming on AMC+.
AMC released the first three images from the Norman Reedus-fronted spinoff, The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon. Ted Lasso season 3 teaser drops. HBO Max’s The Penguin adds more to its cast. Seth MacFarlane is developing graphic novel The Shrouded College for Peacock. Plus, trailers for Shadow and Bone season 2, Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story, and more of the biggest news in TV and streaming of the past week.
TOP STORY
(Photo by Emmanuel Guimier/AMC)
The Walking Dead may be over, but the adventures of Daryl Dixon will continue in AMC’s new undead spinoff The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon, with Norman Reedus returning to play the fan favorite character. To whet the appetites of fans everywhere, AMC dropped three new images from the upcoming show to tease what Daryl may be up to when he touches down in France.
With more spinoffs in various stages of development, including the Maggie and Negan–centered The Walking Dead: Dead City and the highly-anticipated (and yet to be titled) Rick and Michonne spinoff project, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed and inundated with zombies.
And we don’t blame you.
Reedus apparently feels it, too. He described this continuation of Daryl’s storyline as a “reset,” telling EW, “You learn a lot of things after 12 years of doing a show, and there are certain paths that you inevitably have to go down because [there is such a big cast]. We don’t really have that over there. It’s kind of a fresh start for us, with all the things that we loved doing, and just a whole bunch more.”
The six-episode first season of The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon is set to premiere in the fall. Until we know more, check out the other two first-look images below.
(Photo by Emmanuel Guimier/AMC)
(Photo by Emmanuel Guimier/AMC)
AFC Richmond will hit the field once again, and maybe for the last time, when Apple TV+’s celebrated sports series returns for season 3. Will they come out on top when all is said and done? According to the above teaser, all we have to do is believe.
Jason Sudeikis, Brett Goldstein, Brendan Hunt, Hannah Waddingham, and Juno Temple will return for the Emmy-winning series. And they’ll definitely have their work cut out for them, considering the reveal in season 2 that Nick Mohammed’s Nate, still reeling from being dubbed “the Wonder Kid” by the media, has gone over to work for Rupert (Anthony Head) and the opposing team.
With Roy Kent stepping up as AFC Richmond’s assistant coach, while Ted continues wrestling with professional and personal challenges, the emotional stakes for the new run of episodes may be the highest yet. But when all the cards feel like they’re stacked against him, Coach Lasso always seems to rise to the occasion. Can he do it again, this time? All we can do is believe.
Ted Lasso season 3 will premiere on March 15 on Apple TV+
Read also: The Most Anticipated TV and Streaming Shows of 2023
“What nightmare have we gotten ourselves into?” Kaz Brekker (Freddy Carter) asks in the new trailer for Shadow and Bone season 2. If you thought things were going to get easier for Alina Starkov (Jessie Mei Li), you’ve got another thing coming.
Continuing the saga based on Leigh Bardugo’s bestselling Grishaverse book series, the new episodes will find Alina in a challenging predicament: She’s got to level up her cool new sun-summoning powers and figure out how to use them to stop General Aleksander Kirigan (Ben Barnes), better known as the Darkling, from dragging the entire world into utter darkness.
An unkillable army made of shadows is just one of many problems Alina and her new crew of allies will face in battling Kirigan. All she has to do, really, is embark on a continent-spanning journey to find the mythical creatures that will help to amplify her powers. Hey, no pressure.
Shadow and Bone season 2 premieres on Thursday, March 16 on Netflix.
More trailers and teasers released this week:
• Part 2 of You season 4 picks up where the previous episodes left off. Gone is the whodunnit theme of the first half of this installment. What’s left? Bloody hell. Premieres March 9. (Netflix)
• Swarm, which hails from Atlanta creator Donald Glover and writer Janine Nabers, follows Dre (Dominique Fishback), a young woman whose obsession with a pop star takes a dark turn. Premieres March 17. (Prime Video)
• American Born Chinese is based on the genre-hopping graphic novel by Gene Luen Yang and tells the story of Jin Wang, an average teenager juggling his high school social life with his home life. When he meets a new student on the first day of the school year, even more worlds collide as Jin is unwittingly entangled in a battle of Chinese mythological gods. Premieres Spring 2023. (Disney+)
• Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies is a musical prequel series to musical film Grease, taking place four years before Danny Zuko and Sandy Olsson lit up Rydell High, before rock ‘n’ roll ruled, and before the T-Birds were the coolest in the school. The story follows four fed-up outcasts who dare to have fun on their own terms, sparking a moral panic that will change things forever. Premieres April 6. (Disney+)
• Outlast is a raw survival competition series where 16 lone wolves must outlast each other in the Alaskan wilderness in an attempt to win $1 million dollars. There is only one rule in this cutthroat game: They must be a part of a team to win. Premieres March 10. (Netflix)
• Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story, a prequel to the bodice-ripping phenomenon from TV super-producer Shonda Rhimes, tells the love story of young Queen Charlotte’s marriage and tracks Lady Agatha Danbury’s rise in society. The limited series premieres May 4. (Netflix)
• Daisy Jones & the Six follows the story of a 1970s band fronted by two feuding, charismatic singers, Daisy Jones and Billy Dunne. Based on the New York Times bestselling novel and set to the soundtrack of original music, the limited series portrays an iconic band imploding at the height of its powers. Premieres March 3. (Prime Video)
• Extrapolations is a bracing drama that introduces a near future where the chaotic effects of climate change have become embedded into our everyday lives. Eight interwoven stories about love, work, faith, and family from across the globe will explore the intimate, life-altering choices that must be made when the planet is changing faster than the population. Premieres March 17. (Apple TV+)
• Lucky Hank stars Bob Odenkirk as Professor Hank Devereaux, an English department chairman at an underfunded college who toes the line between midlife crisis and full-blown meltdown. Premieres March 19. (AMC and AMC+)
• MH370: The Flight That Disappeared explores the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. When the plane and the 239 people on board went missing, a global investigation into the greatest mystery of the modern age ensued. Despite official reports, countless theories, and tireless searches for evidence, one central question remained: What are we missing? Premieres March 8. (Netflix)
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(Photo by ©Warner Bros/Courtesy Everett Collection)
Michael Kelly, Shohreh Aghdashloo, and Deirdre O’Connell have been added to HBO Max’s series, The Penguin. The program stars Colin Farrell as the notorious Batman villain and will continue the story that began in The Batman. Marvel’s The Runaways alum Rhenzy Feliz has also been added to the cast, Variety reported in a separate article. Details regarding the characters the actors will be playing have yet to be released. (Variety)
Digman!, the new half-hour adult animated comedy series co-created by Emmy- and Golden Globe–winning actor Andy Samberg, has announced an epic slate of guest stars for the show’s inaugural season. Clancy Brown, Andy Daly, Cole Escola, Harvey Guillén, Kirby Howell-Baptiste, Marc Evan Jackson, Rachel Kaly, Kerri Kenney, Lauren Lapkus, Jane Lynch, Mike Mitchell, Kyle Mooney, Claudia O’Doherty, Lennon Parham, Daniel Radcliffe, Maya Rudolph, Paul Rust, Jason Schwartzman, Carl Tart, Joe Lo Truglio, and Edgar Wright will all lend their voices to the new Comedy Central series. Digman! is set in a world where archaeologists are massive celebrities and the coolest people on the planet, with Samberg providing the voice of the protagonist, Rip Digman. Mitra Jouhari, Tim Robinson, Dale Soules, Guz Khan, Melissa Fumero, and Tim Meadows round out the main cast.
Apple TV+’s crime drama series Sinking Spring has added seven more to its cast, opposite leads Brian Tyree Henry (who plays the main character Ray), Michael Mando, Marin Ireland, Kate Mulgrew, and Amir Arison. The new additions are Ving Rhames, who will play Ray’s ex-con father Bart; Dustin Nguyen who will play Ray’s friend, Ho Dinh; Nesta Cooper who is Michelle, a lawyer hired to represent both Ray; Idris Debrand who will play a younger version of Ray; Liz Caribel who is Manny’s girlfriend Sherry; Will Pullen who will play junior DEA agent Marchetti; and Kaci Walfall who is Marietty, a girlfriend from Ray’s past. (Deadline)
Sam Esmail’s Metropolis has cast Briana Middleton in the lead role. She will plays Finnie Polito in the Apple TV+ series adaptation of Fritz Lang’s iconic 1927 sci-fi film. Librarians alum Lindy Booth has since been added as the show’s second official cast member. (Variety)
It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia alum Kaitlin Olson will star in Drew Goddard’s American remake of HPI, the popular French detective series. Olson, who will also produce the series, will play a single mom of three who helps solve an unsolvable crime when she rearranges some evidence during her shift as a cleaner for the police department. Soon, she is brought on as a consultant to help solve cases. Deadline reported separately that Daniel Sunjata will also star. (Deadline)
Ben McKenzie will star in ABC’s drama pilot The Hurt Unit. According to the show’s logline, the series is “a cutting-edge medical drama about a highly skilled team of trauma surgeons and nurses who race into the field to treat the patients who won’t make it to the hospital in time.” Deadline has since reported that Augustus Prew, Michelle Ortiz, and Jaime Lee Kirchner have been added to the cast. (Variety)
Joel Kinnaman will play former CIA analyst John Nixon in Debriefing The President, based on Nixon’s non-fiction book that documented his experience as the first American to identify and interrogate Saddam Hussein after he was captured in 2003. (Deadline)
J.J. Abrams and LaToya Morgan’s Duster was ordered to series by HBO Max. The eight-episode crime caper will star Rachel Hilson and Josh Holloway and follow the first Black female FBI agent (the series is set in 1972) as she sets out to take down a growing crime syndicate with the help of a gutsy getaway driver. Keith David, Sydney Elisabeth, Greg Grunberg, Camille Guaty, Asivak Koostachin, Adriana Aluna Martinez, and Benjamin Charles Watson will also star.
Taylor Sheridan’s Bass Reeves series has added Forrest Goodluck and Lauren E. Banks to star opposite series lead David Oyelowo. Banks will play Jenny, the loyal and fierce wife of Reeves. Goodluck is a young and stylish Cherokee man named Billy Crowe. The series will follow the true story of Reeves, who is known as the greatest frontier hero in American history. (Variety)
(Photo by Steve Granitz/FilmMagic)
A new horror adventure is making its way to Peacock, thanks to Seth MacFarlane. The Shrouded College, which is written by Charles Soule and Will Sliney, who will also executive produce, is a set of seven interconnected stories that follow a group of characters enlisted to become secret agents fighting a cold war of supernatural proportions on behalf of a down-and-out organization known as The Shrouded College. “Hell to Pay,” the first issue in the comic series, was published in November 2022 and the second installment, “The Bloody Dozen,” will drop in late 2023. Over the next few years, the series will hit the shelves in comic and graphic novel formats. (Deadline)
Creatures of Sonaria, the open world survival video game in Roblox, which features a bevy of dragons, monsters, and other supernatural creatures, is in development by Wind Sun Sky Entertainment and Productivity Media, Inc., as a live-action scripted series. As the press release states, the series will “bring the games’ fantastical creatures and epic world to life in a new medium that consumers haven’t experienced before.”
Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson continues to carve out a successful niche in the television world. The Emmy and Grammy award-winning producer, director, actor, and recording artist has entered into a non-exclusive multi-project broadcast deal with Fox Entertainment. Through his production company G-Unit Film & Television, Jackson will bring scripted dramas, live-action comedies, and animated series to the network.
Starsky & Hutch may be returning to television soon, but with a new look and feel. The one-hour drama, which is being developed at Fox by writers and showrunners Sam Sklaver and Elizabeth Peterson, will center on Sasha Starsky and Nicole Hutchinson, two female detectives who solve crimes in Desert City. The series will explore their professional relationship and close friendship as it revolves around a mystery that sent their fathers to prison a decade and a half ago for a crime they didn’t commit. The original series the original series followed partners David Michael Starsky (Paul Michael Glaser) and Kenneth Richard “Hutch” Hutchinson (David Soul) as they fought crime, and looked cool while doing so in their iconic Ford Gran Torino, in Bay City, California. It aired on ABC from 1975 to 1979. (Deadline)
https://twitter.com/NetflixAnime/status/1625630975375081472?s=20
Netflix is creating an anime based on Japan’s popular manga Pluto, which will hit the streamer later this year. Hailed as a masterpiece, with multiple awards to back that claim up, the manga is based on Osamu Tezuka’s Astro Boy “The Greatest Robot on Earth” story arch from 1964, and created by Naoki Urasawa and long-time collaborator Takashi Nagasaki. The thriller takes place in a neo-futuristic world where humans and high-functioning robots exist in harmony. Shinshu Fuji, Yoko Hikasa, and Minori Suzuki will lead the voice cast.
Stone Cold Fox is getting the TV adaptation treatment at Universal. Rachel Koller Croft, the author of the recently released book, is set to write the series. Julie Plec and Emily Cummins will executive produce the program, which is about a woman, whose mom was a con artist, striving to escape her dark past for good. But when she focused on one last con, to marry into an American dynasty, unexpected challenges appear to threaten the new life she’s worked so hard for. (Deadline)
N.K. Jemisin’s bestselling novels The City We Became and The World We Make, known as the author’s “The Great Cities” duology, has been acquired by Walden Media with plans for series development. The books are set in an alternate reality that finds major cities becoming sentient through human avatars. When New York falls into a coma and disappears, a group of five human representations of New York’s boroughs come together to save New York, and maybe even the world. (Variety)
Multi-camera comedy JumpStart has received a pilot order at CBS. The program is based on Robb Armstrong’s comic strip, which debuted back in 1989 and follows a Philadelphia cop named Joe, his nurse wife Marcy, and Joe’s partner Crunchy. (Deadline)
https://twitter.com/RottenTomatoes/status/1626725710587895809
James Graham, Michael Sheen, and Adam Curtis have teamed up to create BBC drama, The Way, a three-part drama that follows a civil uprising in a small industrial town. Graham will write the series, Sheen will make his TV directorial debut, and the duo co-created the project with Curtis, a celebrated documentarian. (Deadline)
The Snakehead, based on Patrick Radden Keefe book of the same name, may be headed to television courtesy of A24. This immigration story, which is described as a mix between The Godfather and Chinatown, exists in a secret world run by a middle-aged woman from New York’s Chinatown. She runs a lucrative business smuggling people to America, safely. (Deadline)
The restructuring of Paramount Global’s streaming platform Paramount+, which includes the absorption of Showtime into the streamer, has led to the service raising prices. According to CFO Naveen Chopra, in an update delivered on a post-earnings conference call, the rebranded Paramount+ with Showtime will raise $2 dollars from $9.99 a month to $11.99 a month. The essential tier without Showtime is increasing from $4.99 to $5.99 a month. (Deadline)
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Excited fans took to the floor of the Jacob Javits Convention Center to celebrate their favorite TV shows and highly-anticipated new films at New York Comic Con over the weekend. While attendees buzzed over exclusive items, collectibles, and freebies on the show floor, a curated selection of programming rooms, stage panels, and Q&A events provided news reveals that echoed beyond the convention halls.
Here are the top highlights as they were presented at NYCC:
His Dark Materials season 3 finally has a trailer, and a premiere date
“The Amber Spyglass,” the final book in Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials series gets the adaptation treatment in the third and final season of HBO and BBC’s landmark fantasy series. Get ready for elephants on wheels, a whole load of angels, tiny folks who ride insects to and fro, and of course, hell.
84%
His Dark Materials
season 3 premieres on Dec. 5 on HBO Max.
The Super Mario Bros. Movie trailer boasts an all-star cast
It’s been three decades since the notoriously cheesy ’90s live-action adaptation of Nintendo’s massively popular video game franchise hit theaters. Illumination Animation and Universal finally unleashed the first trailer for their highly-anticipated The Super Mario Bros. Movie at New York Comic Con and its cast is superb. Chris Pratt plays Mario, Charlie Day is Luigi, Anya Taylor-Joy is Princess Peach, Jack Black goes full villain as Bowser, Seth Rogen is Donkey Kong and Keegan-Michael Key plays Toad.
59%
The Super Mario Bros. Movie
(2023)
premieres on April 7, 2023, nationwide in theaters.
Anne Rice’s The Mayfair Witches continues the author’s legacy on AMC
In its continued effort to expand the Anne Rice story universe on television, AMC+ is gearing up to bring The Mayfair Witches to the small screen. The official trailer for the series dropped before the show’s NYCC panel, and ensures the author’s enduring legacy is firmly in-tact.
Stars Alexandra Daddario (Dr. Rowan Fielding), Harry Hamlin (Cortland Mayfair), Tongayi Chirisa (Ciprien Grieve) and Jack Huston (Lasher) joined executive producers Esta Spalding, Mark Johnson and Michelle Ashford on stage after the clip came to an end. How will this series differ from the witch stories that came before it? According to Ashford, the idea of telling a story of witches — aka, healers who were demonized by society — felt absolutely relevant to present day.
Anne Rice’s The Mayfair Witches premieres Thursday, January 5, 2023, on AMC+.
Mindy Kaling’s Scooby Doo spinoff Velma is an adult animated series without Scooby
In the vein of raucous animated programs like Rick and Morty and Harley Quinn, Warner Bros. Animation’ Velma digs into the high school origin story of the orange-turtleneck wearing, be-spectacled Velma Dinkley. Gone is the family friendly vibe of previous Scooby Doo installments, making way for some blood-spattered horror goodness and thought-provoking adult themes to take shape.
During the NYCC panel, showrunner Charlie Grandy explained the omission of everyone’s favorite burger-loving Great Dane.
“What made Scooby-Doo a kid show is Scooby-Doo,” Grandy said. “We couldn’t have a take on it, like, How can we do this in a fun and modern way?”
It turns out, their efforts to keep Scoob out of things lined up with Warner Bros. Animation saying they couldn’t use him anyway. Without Scooby, the series is able to differentiate itself, fully leaning into its adult tone.
It’s still a high school series, though. Mindy Kaling, who doesn’t just voice Velma, but also executive produces the series, tapped into her knack for bringing high school stories to life, here. The Never Have I Ever show creator revealed her love of exploring “people from different social strata find[ing] something in common.”
With a uniquely diverse cast, and various themes of identity being explored, Kaling assured the crowd that this series is completely in her wheelhouse: “We get to see all the high school events and dances in addition to it being a murder mystery.”
Joining Kaling in the series is Constance Wu, who plays Daphne, Sam Richardson’s Norville (who will also go by “Shaggy), and Glenn Howerton’s Fred.
Velma will premiere in 2023 on HBO Max.
The Legend of Vox Machina drops trailer for season 2, and exciting season 3 news
Ahead of the second season of Prime Video’s hit animated series, The Legend of Vox Machina, the cast announced to the NYCC crowd the exciting news that a third season is now in the cards. The series is based on the characters and adventures as originally featured in Critical Role, the web series phenomenon that follows a cast of voice actors as they play through various Dungeons & Dragons campaigns.
As the official season 2 synopsis states: “After saving the realm from evil and destruction at the hands of the most terrifying power couple in Exandria, Vox Machina is faced with saving the world once again — this time, from a sinister group of dragons known as the Chroma Conclave.”
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The Legend of Vox Machina
season 2 premieres in January on Prime Video.
Adult Animated Koala Man Adds Jemaine Clement, Rachel House, and Jarrad Wright with Miranda Otto and Hugo Weaving set to make guest appearances
(Photo by Hulu)
Hulu paneled the upcoming original adult animated series Koala Man on Thursday and announced the casting of Jemaine Clement, Rachel House, and Jarrad Wright with Miranda Otto and Hugo Weaving set to make guest appearances. Previously announced cast includes Hugh Jackman, Sarah Snook, Demi Lardner, and creator Michael Cusack. Koala Man follows middle-aged dad Kevin (Cusack) and his titular not-so-secret identity, whose only superpower is a passion for following rules and battling petty crime in the town of Dapto, an Australian suburb.
The Wheel of Time drops the highly-anticipated trailer for season 2
Season 2 of The Wheel of Time has been wrapped for some time and finally, during Friday’s panel for the series (which was partnered with Prime Video’s other fantasy juggernaut series The Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power), series creator Rafe Judkins offered fans a peek at what’s to come in the new episodes.
During the presentation, Judkins teased the inclusion of the Seanchan, a magical army of invaders who appear in Robert Jordan’s second Wheel Of Time book. The villainous entities with the long metal nails can be seen briefly in the trailer above. Gone from the series is Barney Harris, who played Mat Cauthon in season 1, with Dónal Finn taking over as the character. We may not have a premiere date yet, but by the looks of the season 2 trailer, the situation seems dire for Moiraine, Lan, Rand al’Thor, and the gang.
81%
The Wheel of Time: Season 1
(2021)
is now streaming on Prime Video.
The Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power season finale trailer gives a first look at Sauron
Say hello to Sauron! Prime Video released a trailer teasing the epic season finale for Lord of the Rings prequel series, Rings of Power during the show’s panel. And by the looks of things, this upcoming week’s episode will finally bring Mordor’s big bad to the small-screen.
Some other noteworthy tidbits were released regarding the show’s future on the platform. Given the good news that the series was renewed for a second season, showrunners J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay were absent from the NYCC panel. They’re in pre-production on the new episodes which will switch shooting locations from New Zealand to London. Not to mention, Felicia Day has been tapped to host an eight-episode companion podcast that will go live on October 14, just in time to talk about season 1’s end.
With a five-season plan in place, Prime Video seems to have plenty of confidence in the high-budget fantasy series. Just where things will go is anyone’s guess, but it sure will be pretty to look at once season 2 premieres.
84%
The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power: Season 1
(2022)
concludes on Friday, October 14 on Prime Video.
Good Omens season 2 gets a premiere date, and noteworthy additions to the cast
(Photo by Prime Video)
Neil Gaiman appeared to tease Good Omens’ anticipated summer 2023 return to Prime Video. While he was mostly tight-lipped about specific story details for the six new episodes, he did hint at a love story being in the cards. Whether that romance is between Michael Sheen’s angel Aziraphale and David Tennant’s demon Crowley is anyone’s guess.
During the New York Comic Con panel, some new casting details were released for season 2 and some familiar faces are returning to play new characters. Actresses Maggie Service and Nina Sosanya, who portrayed nuns in the first installment of the show, are returning to play new characters, aptly named Maggie and Nina.
(Photo by Prime Video)
“There were two characters in it,” Gaiman shared coyly, “and I wanted them played by Maggie and Nina. In order to make it clear to everyone reading the script that those characters were going to be played by Maggie and Nina, I called them Maggie and Nina.”
“I play Maggie,” Service added. “She runs a record shop, which is besides Aziraphale’s bookshop in SoHo. It’s a shop that’s been passed through the generations. My shop look looks across …”
“… another shop, which is a coffee shop” Sosanya added, explaining her character. “It’s called Give Me Coffee or Give Me Death. Nina is a bit mintier than I am. She runs this independent coffee shop in SoHo. She is good at dealing with people who come into a coffee shop in SoHo. She’s not afraid of dealing with people.”
(Photo by Prime Video)
A new addition to the cast is actress Quelin Sepulveda, who will be playing an angel named Muriel. She’s a completely new character in the Good Omens story canon. And, by all accounts, she’s just a friendly welcoming sort. Something that is a bit hard to come by in heaven, apparently.
“We realized that one thing we didn’t have in heaven was, apart from Aziraphale, any nice, well-meaning angels,” Gaiman continued. “All we had were bastards.”
(Photo by Prime Video)
“Muriel has spent about 6,000 years or more in the same office in heaven,” Gaiman added. “Just filing things and reading things, just hoping someone will come in and the day will get more interesting.”
Miranda Richardson is back in season 2, playing a demon named Shax who’s aiming to replace Crowley. And Shelley Conn takes over as Beelzebub in the new episodes.
(Photo by Prime Video)
(Photo by Prime Video)
86%
Good Omens
season 2 is expected to premiere in 2023 on Prime Video.
Teen Wolf: The Movie first look teases a very different Derek Hale
Paramount+ revealed a first look clip for the streamer’s upcoming Teen Wolf sequel movie, aptly titled Teen Wolf: The Movie. The film takes place 15 years after the end of the MTV series and checks in with Scott McCall, who, as star Tyler Posey revealed during the movie’s panel, “is not a teen wolf, anymore. He’s a 30-year-old wolf.” What does that mean, exactly? According to Posey, “It’s the first time we’ve seen him [try to be a normal human] since the pilot.” And, apparently, you can’t be a normal human without dealing with issues like, “depression, loneliness, and anxiety.”
As for the scene that was teased before the panel, Tyler Hoechlin (who reprises the role of Derek Hale) was unable to introduce the clip due to getting stuck in traffic. Writer Jeff Davis teased that Derek will also be shown “in a whole new light.” Being a father to Eli (Vince Mattis’ character) and taking on the role of mentor sure can change a wolf. Even though everyone has matured, the addition of Eli to the cast helps to “bring the teen back to Teen Wolf.”
32%
Teen Wolf: The Movie
(2023)
premieres January 26, 2023, on Paramount+.
Sarah Michelle Gellar trades vampires for werewolves in first trailer for Wolf Pack
Wolf Pack is technically a Teen Wolf spinoff series, in that, both stories take place in the same story world, but that’s where the connection ends. Boasting the genre TV return of Buffy’s Sarah Michelle Gellar, the series follows four teenagers brought together after a California wildfire sparks a werewolf attack.
Gellar plays arson investigator Kristin Ramsey, who also has some helpful supernatural insight. Joining her in the series is Rodrigo Santoro, Armani Jackson, Bella Shepard, Chloe Rose Robertson, and Tyler Lawrence Gray, all of whom appeared in front of the New York Comic Con crowd to promote the show.
Explaining why she chose to return to horror, Gellar said, “Utilizing the supernatural is how we explain the things we cannot really understand. The stories that we can’t really grasp, or the ones that would be too depressing in real life, and too upsetting. We use those to scare ourselves into understanding.”
44%
Wolf Pack
premieres January 26, 2023, on Paramount+.
Star Trek: Discovery season 5 trailer introduces new outlaws and a new Starfleet captain
Star Trek owned New York Comic Con in Saturday with Paramount+ presenting a gargantuan Star Trek Universe panel to the packed event, promoting Star Trek: Discovery season 5, Star Trek: Prodigy, and Star Trek: Picard’s third and final season.
Sonequa Martin-Green hit the NYCC stage to share this first look trailer for season 5 of Star Trek: Discovery. The teaser gives a peek at new characters Rayner (played by Callum Keith Rennie), a hardened Starfleet captain; Moll (played by Eve Harlow), a criminal who faces off with the Discovery crew; and her partner, L’ak (played by Elias Toufexis).
84%
Star Trek: Discovery
season 5 premiere date is to be announced.
Star Trek: Prodigy‘s midseason return adds a familiar Starfleet officer to the cast
Star Trek veteran Ronny Cox was announced as a new addition to the voice cast on Star Trek: Prodigy. Previously, Cox played the character of Edward Jellico in Star Trek: The Next Generation. Now, in the animated children’s series, he will reprise the role, who has moved up the ranks in Starfleet to Admiral status.
94%
Star Trek: Prodigy: Season 1
(2021)
makes its mid-season return on October 27 to Paramount+.
Star Trek: Picard reunites the Next Generation cast in the trailer for its third and final season
The trailer for the third and final season of Star Trek: Picard delivered some epic fan service during the show’s panel at New York Comic Con. Some core Next Generation cast members joined Patrick Stewart on stage to tease the final episodes, including Brent Spiner (who has appeared as multiple characters throughout the first two seasons of Picard), LeVar Burton, Michael Dorn, Jonathan Frakes, Gates McFadden and Marina Sirtis.
Amanda Plummer was revealed as the vengeful alien Vadic, who seeks to destroy Jean-Luc Picard and his old crew. This time around, Spiner will be playing Lore, Data’s evil android brother, who appeared multiple times throughout the original TNG run. Daniel Davis, who played the hologram version of Professor James Moriarty in The Next Generation, is also returning to Picard.
Adding some cool connective tissue to the casting of the series is the addition of Mica Burton, LeVar’s daughter, who will be playing Ensign Alandra La Forge, Geordi La Forge’s youngest daughter.
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Star Trek: Picard
season 3 will premiere February 16, 2023, on Paramount+.
The Walking Dead‘s Lauren Cohan and Jeffrey Dean Morgan tease Dead City spinoff
(Photo by AMC)
During the final New York Comic Con panel for AMC’s The Walking Dead, a first look peek was given to The Walking Dead: Dead City, the network’s upcoming spinoff series starring Lauren Cohan as Maggie and Jeffrey Dean Morgan as Negan. It’s a pretty fitting tease, considering the fact that the apocalyptic new show is set in the Big Apple.
“The crumbling city is filled with the dead and denizens who have made New York City their own world full of anarchy, danger, beauty, and terror,” AMC said in its original press release for the series in March, back when it was titled Isle of the Dead.
Check out the other first look images below:
(Photo by AMC)
(Photo by AMC)
(Photo by AMC)
(Photo by AMC)
(Photo by AMC)
(Photo by AMC)
The Walking Dead: Dead City will premiere in April 2023 on AMC and AMC+.
Wednesday unleashes Fred Armisen as Uncle Fester in new trailer
Saturday was the day for Wednesday. During the panel for Netflix’s highly-anticipated Adams Family spinoff series, a new trailer was released upon the world giving the first ever looks at Fred Armisen’s Uncle Fester, and the return of Christina Ricci — who played Wednesday Adams in both Adams Family movies — to Tim Burton’s story world.
The clip gave a deeper look at Wednesday’s high school experience at Nevermore Academy, where Ricci plays a professor named Miss Thornhill.
Armisen, who appeared as a surprise guest during the panel, confirmed he shaved his head to properly get in character. “I shaved my head because this was like a role [that] as soon as I heard about it, I was like, Oh, I gotta be Fester! I really wanted to do it, and I wanted to do it right and not have a bald cap or anything. So, I just shaved my head, and I was proud to do it.”
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Wednesday
will premiere on November 23 on Netflix.
Netflix’s Wendell & Wild drops full trailer to ring in the spooky season
During Saturday’s panel for Netflix’s highly-anticipated stop motion animated feature, director Henry Selick hit the stage to showcase the full trailer for the movie, and give some insight behind its humble humorous beginnings. And yes, this definitely links back to Jordan Peele and Keegan-Michael Key’s groundbreaking sketch comedy series Key & Peele.
“I was so inspired by Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele and their range of subjects, characters,” Selick said. “By the third season I just said, I gotta reach out to those guys.”
Originally a seven-page story Selick wrote for his two sons, Peele joined the creative team and helped expand the story into the full-length movie.
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Wendell & Wild
(2022)
premieres on October 28 on Netflix.
Tom Welling joins CW’s Supernatural spinoff The Winchesters
Tom Welling, the actor best known for playing Clark Kent on Smallville, will be joining The Winchesters in the recurring role of Samuel Campbell, Mary’s (Meg Donnelly) dad. From the sound of things, the Winchester Family Business actually began with the Campbell family and Samuel here, as the announcement goes, taught Mary everything he knows. He will make his first appearance in the series in episode 7.
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The Winchesters
premieres on Tuesday, October 11 on The CW.
Doom Patrol touches down with a new season 4 trailer
After a year of waiting, NYCC fans got a peek at the upcoming fourth season of Doom Patrol and, if anything, the show looks like it hasn’t at all lost its bizarre luster. It’s unclear if season 4 is the final run of the DC series, but considering the new addition of Madeline Zima to the cast (she’s playing Space Case, a superhero who was a bit part of the Gerard Way/Nick Derington run of the books), all signs are pointing to another bonkers fun outing for the rag-tag group of heroes.
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Doom Patrol
season 4 part 1 premieres December 8 on HBO Max.
Titans season 4 part 1 trailer gets dark and bloody
DC’s Titans is gearing up to get culty in its fourth season. During DC’s Sunday panel for the series at New York Comic Con, a new teaser dropped to whet our appetites for the coming episodes and by the looks of things, the show is about to get very bloody. Could the Church of Blood (the cult ran by villain Brother Blood) play a big part of the new season? It’s very possible. We’ll get the answers we seek in November.
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Titans
season 4, part 1 premieres Thursday, November 3 on HBO Max.
FX’s Kindred adaptation finally gets a premiere date
(Photo by FX)
FX’s new drama series Kindred, based on Hugo Award-winner Octavia E. Butler’s novel of the same name, will premiere all eight episodes on Tuesday, December 13 exclusively to Hulu. The announcement came during the Kindred panel presentation at New York Comic Con on Sunday, the closing day of the event.
Per the network’s official press release, the series follows Dana James (Mallori Johnson), “a young Black woman and aspiring writer who has uprooted her life of familial obligation and relocated to Los Angeles, ready to claim a future that, for once, feels all her own. But, before she can settle into her new home, she finds herself being violently pulled back and forth in time. She emerges at a 19th-century plantation, a place remarkably and intimately linked with Dana and her family. An interracial romance threads through Dana’s past and present, and the clock is ticking as she struggles to confront secrets she never knew ran through her blood, in this genre-breaking exploration of the ties that bind.”
Starring alongside Johnson are Micah Stock, Ryan Kwanten, Gayle Rankin, Austin Smith, David Alexander Kaplan, Sophina Brown and Sheria Irving.
Kindred season 1 premieres Tuesday, December 13 on Hulu.
On an Apple device? Follow Rotten Tomatoes on Apple News.
(Photo by AMC)
Updated 10/11/21.
The Walking Dead fans have hung with AMC’s zombie series for over 10 seasons now — 161 episodes — and helped the show break several ratings records, including the most-watched cable episode in history when its season 5 premiere aired.
Apparently, the saga of Rick (Andrew Lincoln), Carl (Chandler Riggs), Michonne (Danai Gurira), Daryl (Norman Reedus), Carol (Melissa McBride), Maggie (Lauren Cohan), Glenn (Steven Yeun), Morgan (Lennie James), and the rest of the gang has legs — and feet and arms and decapitated heads — to spare.
We looked at how each of its episodes so far have fared on the Tomatometer and found the most Rotten episodes occurred in season 6, with five of the 16 episodes in that season being deemed Rotten by a consensus of critics (although the season fared well overall — it is Certified Fresh at 76%).
The fifth season is the Freshest of the bunch, with eight TWD seasons overall Certified Fresh, and with the highest overall score at 90%.
Seasons 5 and 3 scored the most episodes in the top 10, claiming four slots each standing at 100%. Season 7’s premiere, “The Day Will Come When You Won’t Be,” had the most reviews of any individual episode with 54 — unsurprising, given that it was the episode in which viewers found out which characters Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) had brained.
Where did “For Blood,” episode 8 of season 11 land? Read on to find out!
What was your favorite episode of The Walking Dead? Tell us in the comments.
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Two beloved series bid adieu this month on NBC and AMC, while we welcome in much-anticipated sophomore seasons from the likes of Comedy Central, HBO Max, Showtime, and more. With plenty of binge-worthy series to go around, let’s break down what you should be catching up on this August.
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The L Word: Generation Q
(Showtime)
What it is: From creators Michele Abbott, Ilene Chaiken, and Kathy Greenberg, the original Emmy-nominated series (decorated elsewhere by GLAAD for its landmark lesbian, bisexual, and transgender characters) and its years-in-the-making sequel series, The L Word: Generation Q, charts the intersecting friendships and love lives of a group of queer women living in Los Angeles.
Why you should watch it: As heralded today as it is maligned, there’s no denying that The L Word made leaps for LGBTQ representation onscreen upon its 2004 premiere, even if it didn’t always hit its mark. While its first season was Certified Fresh for all its bombastic soapiness and memorable characters, critics didn’t follow it into its subsequent seasons, resulting in years without Tomatometer scores — and its sixth and final season was ravaged with a measly 8%. But the show still has its fans and its merits. Plus, its reboot welcomely (and freshly) revisits the components that first made us fall in love with these ladies (including original stars Katherine Moennig and Jennifer Beals) while expanding and bettering itself where there is room to grow. The L Word: Generation Q season 2 premieres August 8 on Showtime.
Where to watch: Amazon, Google Play, Hulu, Microsoft, Showtime, Vudu
Commitment: Approx. 77.5 hours (for all six seasons of The L Word and The L Word: Generation Q season 1)
94%
DC's Stargirl
(The CW)
What it is: Based on the character from the DC Comics by Geoff Johns and Lee Moder, DC’s Stargirl follows teenager Courtney Whitmore, who, upon discovering the Cosmic Staff and learning that her stepfather was once sidekick to Starman, takes up the cause of the Justice Society of America and recruits a whole new crew of superheroes to join her cause.
Why you should watch it: Already renewed for a third season before its second even airs, star Brec Bassinger has woven some superpowered magic with her hit DC Universe–turned–CW series. With action and family-friendly fun for all ages, it strikes an inspiring narrative of the powers of good that can rise up in the face of evil. Season 2 premieres August 10 on the CW.
Where to watch: Amazon, Google Play, HBO Max, Microsoft, Vudu
Commitment: Approx. 9.5 hours (for the first season)
95%
Brooklyn Nine-Nine
(NBC)
What it is: This hit comedy series from creators Dan Goor and Michael Schur is a workplace sitcom featuring some very distinct personalities — the aloof and gregarious Detective Jake Peralta (Saturday Night Live alum Andy Samberg), his fictional precinct’s dry commanding officer, Captain Ray Holt (Andre Braugher), and the rest of the motley crew of the Nine-Nine.
Why you should watch it: We’ve seen fan-initiated primetime resuscitations before, but rarely do they happen as swiftly as Brooklyn Nine-Nine’s after its unceremonious cancellation at Fox. The online outcry had barely begun before Universal Television began shopping the sitcom around, and it was scooped up by NBC just a day later — with good reason. The series is beloved by fans, which is why it comes as particularly sad news that its eighth season, premiering August 12, will also be its last.
Where to watch: Amazon, FandangoNOW, Google Play, Hulu, Microsoft, Peacock, Vudu
Commitment: Approx. 52 hours (for the first seven seasons)
89%
Titans
(HBO Max)
What it is: This series is centered on its titular group of young superheroes — led by none other than Nightwing (formerly Robin of Batman-sidekick fame) — as they save the world from forces that want to end it. A long-in-the-making effort, Titans is a welcome addition to DC Comics’ TV footprint.
Why you should watch it: Greg Berlanti is the mastermind behind DC Comics’ takeover of the small screen, so you know you’re in good hands for this streaming hit with him and co-creators Akiva Goldsman and Geoff Johns (also of Stargirl fame) at the helm. The Titans action is slick and laid on thick, and buoyed by a stellar young-Hollywood cast. We can’t wait to see what superhero adventures are in store next. Season 3 premieres August 12 on HBO Max.
Where to watch it: Amazon, FandangoNOW, Google Play, HBO Max, Vudu
Commitment: Approx. 18 hours (for the first two seasons)
69%
Modern Love
(Amazon Prime Video)
What it is: From director and showrunner John Carney (best known for musical romances Once, Begin Again, and Sing Street) and based on the New York Times’s much-loved column of the same name, Modern Love is a anthological series charting the love lives of various disparate New Yorkers played by the likes of Tina Fey, Anne Hathaway, Dev Patel, Catherine Keener, and more.
Why you should watch it: The acting talent alone is enough reason to tune in, but this series packs on the charm in ways both expected and surprising, sending its material over the edge from just basic rom-com fare to something a little more special. Season 2 premieres August 13 on Amazon Prime Video.
Where to watch: Amazon
Commitment: Approx. 4 hours (for the first season)
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Awkwafina Is Nora From Queens
(Comedy Central)
What it is: Creator Awkwafina stars here as Nora Lin, a Flushing, Queens, native comically trying to get her young adulthood life together with the help of some family and friends.
Why you should watch it: Fresh off the breakout acclaim of Crazy Rich Asians and The Farewell, Awkwafina’s self-titled Comedy Central series became the latest semi-autobiographical half-hour to take a hold of us. With supporting and scene-stealing turns from BD Wong, Lori Tan Chinn, and Bowen Yang as her father, grandmother, and cousin respectively, it’s a series that showcases the universality of coming-of-age. Season 2 premieres August 18 on Comedy Central.
Where to watch: Amazon, FandangoNOW, Google Play, HBO Max, Microsoft, Vudu
Commitment: Approx. 5 hours (for the first season)
79%
The Walking Dead
(AMC)
What it is: Don’t know what The Walking Dead is? You may want to check your pulse…
Why you should watch it: Based on the comic book series by Robert Kirkman, Tony Moore, and Charlie Adlard’s post-apocalyptic premise of zombies walking the Earth and ending mankind as we know it, the acclaimed series developed by creator Frank Darabont indulges in gore and “what if” fascinations. These are characters brought to life with bone-deep precision from a stable of some of TV’s greatest talents. You just never know when your favorite will bite the dust, but that’s admittedly part of the fun, too. Its eleventh and final season premieres August 22 on AMC.
Where to watch: Amazon, FandangoNOW, Google Play, Microsoft, Netflix, Vudu
Commitment: Approx. 114 hours (for the first 10 seasons)
100%
Work in Progress
(Showtime)
What it is: Following the highs and lows of a self-proclaimed fat, queer dyke who suffers from OCD and depression while living in Chicago, co-creator and star Abby McEnany turns the lens inward and makes one heck of a debut.
Why you should watch it: Not many entertainers can say they had their “mainstream” breakout after 50, but McEnany can count herself among the lucky few. A mainstay of Chicago’s comedy scene via Second City and a one-time student of Stephen Colbert, the multi-hyphenate finds ways to turn the cringingly personal into universal reflections on contemporary humanity. Season 2 premieres August 22 on Showtime.
Where to watch: Amazon, FandangoNOW, Google Play, Hulu, Microsoft, Showtime, Vudu
Commitment: Approx. 4 hours (for the first season)
75%
The Witcher
(Netflix)
What it is: From director Kwang Il Han and based on the book series by Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski, The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf is a prequel spinoff film of Netflix’s hit Henry Cavill starrer from creator Lauren Schmidt that charts the monster-slaying adventures of Geralt’s mentor, Vesemir, in stunning anime.
Why you should watch it: If you haven’t already read the source material, we recommend the best way to catch up for this feature is to binge the first season of The Witcher. Ambitiously violent and larger-than-life, it certainly ranks as one of Netflix’s best fantasy series and will give you all the knowledge you need to appreciate this animated vision of what came before. The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf premieres August 23 on Netflix. (Season 2 of the live-action series premieres on December 17.)
Where to watch: Netflix
Commitment: Approx. 8 hours (for the first season)
77%
American Horror Story
(FX)
What it is: Now going into its 10th season, the spooky anthology series is a favorite of critics and audiences alike. Previous seasons featured haunted houses, witches, vampires, crazed killers, and every manner of unhinged human.
Why you should watch it: You don’t have to watch every season of American Horror Story to catch up for season 10, but don’t you want to!? The acclaimed anthology series is known for being as campy as it is horrific. The upcoming season, American Horror Story: Double Feature, is divided in two parts for two times the fun; one half is set by the sea, the other by the sand. Returning stars to the franchise include Sarah Paulson and Evan Peters after taking a break from 1984, Frances Conroy, Leslie Grossman, Billie Lourd, Lily Rabe, Angelica Ross, Finn Wittrock, Denis O’Hare, Matt Bomer, and more. Season 10 premieres August 25 on FX.
Where to watch: Amazon, FandangoNOW, Google Play, Hulu, Microsoft, Netflix, Vudu
Commitment: Approx. 85 hours (for the first nine seasons)
91%
Archer
(FXX)
What it is: Even the sleekest of action-packed espionage thrillers have an air of cartoonish hyperbole to them, but FXX’s Archer does away with that suspension of disbelief by making the whole thing a cartoon to begin with. The half-hour comedy from creator Adam Reed can land a joke as deftly as its titular man-child spy can land a punch, so expect to be thrilled while laughing yourself silly.
Why you should watch it: Over 11 hit seasons, Archer has never shied away from genre experimentation. Season 8’s Dreamland and 9’s Danger Island were particularly high-concept highlights, with season 10 following suit with 1999, which saw Archer not as the ass-kicking spy of ISIS we know from earlier incarnations, but a futuristic explorer of space on the M/V Seamus alongside our longstanding favorite characters and the voice actors behind them. Season 11 marked the spies much-anticipated return to reality after he wakes up from his coma and does away with those bottle-themed seasons. Season 12, which features the late, great Jessica Walter’s final bow as the voice of Malory, premieres August 25 on FXX.
Where to watch: Amazon, FandangoNow, Google Play, Hulu, Microsoft, Vudu
Commitment: Approx. 45 hours (for the first 11 seasons)
97%
The Other Two
(HBO Max)
What it is: Cary (Drew Tarver), and his sister, Brooke (Heléne Yorke) had dreams of fame of fortune, but now fast-approaching 30 with not much to show for it, they’re forced to contend with overnight, Justin Bieber–style viral fame of their teen brother Chase (Case Walker).
Why you should watch it: With a never-better Molly Shannon as the central three’s supportive (but a bit delusional) mother, this laugh-out-loud series from Saturday Night Live vets Chris Kelly and Sarah Schneider parodies pop culture as much as it celebrates it — and it’s just about perfect. Season 2 premieres August 26 on HBO Max.
Where to watch: HBO Max
Commitment: Approx. 3.5 hours (for the first season)
Thumbnail photo credits: Josh Stringer/AMC; Matt Sayles/The CW; Comedy Central
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Star Wars and X-Men actor Oscar Isaac has learned some new moves as a Marvel superhero, get a look at the Powerpuff Women, and Jeffrey Dean Morgan hints at The Walking Dead Negan spinoff. Plus, new trailers and more of the biggest TV and streaming news of the week.
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It probably shouldn’t come as a total surprise that mercenary with multiple personalities could become quite violent. But a new video chronicling Moon Knight star Isaac’s training for his role as the lead in the upcoming Disney+ Marvel series suggests the titular character may be a real killer, something that could potentially the family friendliness right out of the MCU story.
The video reveals some impressive fight moves during Isaac’s training, several sequences of which end with what appears to be throat-slitting knife work. The video was posted to Instagram by Mad Gene Media, the New York–based production company founded by Isaac and Elvira Lind.
Whatever Isaac’s character is getting up to in the series, it definitely seems like there’s plenty of action-packed drama ahead … for viewers whose mommies and daddies deem it appropriate viewing, anyway.
(Photo by James Acomb/The CW)
If you were a little underwhelmed last week at the sight of the Powerpuff girls in costume on the set of The CW’s upcoming live-action reboot of the Powerpuff Girls cartoon, we’ve got news and an important update. The literally cartoon-y look of the costumes was intentional; the scenes being filmed were flashbacks to Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup Utonium in action during their teenage years.
This week, The CW released the first official photo of Powerpuff stars Chloe Bennet, Dove Cameron, and Yana Perrault as adults, and they’re wearing some colorful, but still all grown up, stylin’ duds. The pilot, in fact, will be largely focused on the women as adults, and their angst about having spent their younger years as world-saving heroines.
In other Powerpuff news, Robyn Lively joined the cast as Sara Bellum, the mayor’s assistant, while original series narrator, Tom Kenny, will return as the narrator for the reboot..
With season 10’s finale – the season-best “Here’s Negan” episode of The Walking Dead that featured Jeffrey Dean Morgan and his real-life wife Hilarie Burton playing Negan and his wife Lucille – setting up the inevitable showdown between Negan and Lauren Cohan’s Maggie in TWD’s upcoming final season, fans are facing the end of the line for most TV versions of TWD’s characters.
But during Morgan’s appearance on Conan this week, he provided hope for fans of his performance of Negan, confirming to Conan O’Brien that there have been discussions about a spin-off series revolving around the bat-swinging killer who’s trying to redeem himself.
“I think they’re thinking of a couple different ideas, but I’ve definitely had conversations about possibly continuing the story of Negan,” Morgan said.
(Photo by AMC)
Future TWD projects already announced include a spin-off starring BFFs Daryl (Norman Reedus) and Carol (Melissa McBride) and a series of movies featuring the return of Andy Lincoln as Rick Grimes.
And speaking of Rick, who disappeared from the series when Lincoln left the series, but was killed off in the comic book, he’s going to be resurrected for a special issue of the book.
Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman announced this week he’ll celebrate the 10th anniversary of his company Skybound with a five-issue, limited edition comic book series called Skybound X, with one non-canonical issue featuring Rick Grimes and revisiting a bonus ending story from the comics (issue #75) that revealed aliens to have a hand in the zombie apocalypse.
The Underground Railroad is Oscar-winning director Barry Jenkins’ moving series that imagines an alternate timeline in which the network of abolitionists is an actual railroad, based on Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. Stars Thuso Mbedu, Joel Edgerton, Chase W. Dillon, William Jackson Harper, and Damon Herriman. Premieres May 14 (Amazon Video).
More trailers and teasers released this week:
• In Treatment returns with season 4 and new lead the Emmy-winning Uzo Aduba, as observant, empathetic Dr. Brooke Taylor, a Los Angeles therapist who will help her patients tackle topics like the global pandemic and recent major social and cultural shifts, while she also deals with the complications of her own personal life. Also stars Joel Kinnaman, Anthony Ramos, Quintessa Swindell, and John Benjamin Hickey. Premieres May 23 (HBO).
• Ziwe is the new variety series from the titular comedian and Desus & Mero writer, featuring sketches, musical numbers, and interviews that challenge America’s discomfort with race, politics, and other cultural issues. Stars Ziwe, and guest stars like Bowen Yang and Phoebe Bridgers. Premieres May 9 (Showtime).
• Cruel Summer is a new twist-filled teen mystery set in Texas and sparked by an abduction. Stars Sarah Drew, Chiara Aurelia, and Harley Quinn Smith. Premieres April 20 (Freeform).
• In Mythic Quest season 2, the Raven’s Banquet gang is back in the office post-quarantine, except for C.W. (F. Murray Abraham), whose advanced age means it’s safer for him to continue working remotely. Stars Rob McElhenney, Jessie Ennis, Charlotte Nicdao, Danny Pudi, David Hornsby, and guest star Snoop Dogg. Premieres May 7 (Apple TV+).
• Shrill is the third and final season of the comedy starring delightful Saturday Night Live star Aidy Bryant. Premieres May 7 (Hulu).
• The Sons of Sam: A Descent Into Darkness is the docuseries about the story behind the story of the investigation of the 1970s “Son of Sam” murders in New York. David Berkowitz was convicted of the serial killings, but a journalist named Maury Terry became obsessed with the idea that Berkowitz had not acted alone. His obsession eventually cost him everything. Premieres May 5 (Netflix).
• Headspace Guide to Sleep is the animated series that sheds health-changing light on just how important sleep is to the human body, and the things we can do – and shouldn’t do – to ensure we get it. Premieres April 28 (Netflix).
• A Black Lady Sketch Show returns for Season 2 with guest stars Gabrielle Union, Miguel, Jesse Williams, and Skai Jackson. Premieres April 23 (HBO).
• Pet Stars is a reality series about an animal talent agency revolving around the biggest social media animal influencers. Premieres April 20 (Netflix).
For all the latest TV and streaming trailers, subscribe to the Rotten Tomatoes TV YouTube channel.
(Photo by Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images)
Jamie Lannister is coming back to television … or rather his portrayer, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau is. The Game of Thrones will star in and executive produce The Second Home, a series adaptation of author Christina Clancy’s debut novel of the same name. The story follows the Gordon and Shaw families, and the two generations of the families whose lives are unraveled by a secret that began during a fateful summer in Cape Cod. No network is yet attached to the series. (Variety)
Fabien Frankel (Last Christmas) has been cast in the Game of Thrones prequel House of the Dragon, where he’ll play Ser Criston Cole, a common-born man with serious sword-swinging skills who is a member of King Viserys I Targaryen’s Kingsguard. (George R. R. Martin’s Blog)
Oscar winner Common has joined the season 2 cast of Mindy Kaling’s YA Netflix hit Never Have I Ever. In a recurring role written just for him after he proclaimed the series one of his pandemic watch favorites, Common will play Dr. Chris Jackson, a dermatologist with a list of celebrity patients, who works in the same building as Nalini (Poorna Jagannathan). Season 2 is scheduled to premiere in July.
Another Oscar winner, Natalie Portman, is staking more claim in TV land. Portman, who recently signed a first-look deal with Apple TV+, will star in and executive produce The Days of Abandonment, an HBO movie adaptation of author Elena Ferrante’s book of the same title. Portman will play Tess, a woman who gave up her dreams to be a wife and mother, only to be abandoned herself when her husband leaves her and throws her world out of control.
Arrested Development alum Michael Cera will make his first return in a regular TV role since Arrested, playing a farmer and chef who brutally honest in the upcoming Amy Schumer Hulu comedy Life & Beth. Schumer, who stars in, executive produces, directs, and writes the 10-episode series, plays Beth, who seems successful to everyone around her, but is shaken when a sudden event makes her rethink her teen years and who she really wants to be.
Justin Timberlake will play The Gong Show host Chuck Barris in an Apple TV+ series about Barris’ life. The series will be based on the late Barris’ 1984 memoir Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, in which he claimed his gigs as game show host and creator of game shows The Dating Game and The Newlywed Game were actually covers for his other job: as CIA assassin. The book was already adapted as the 2002 George Clooney–directed movie adaptation of the same name, with Sam Rockwell playing Barris. (Deadline)
(Photo by Cindy Ord/Getty Images for FIJI Water)
Renée Elise Goldsberry, star of Hamilton and Tina Fey’s upcoming Peacock series Girls5Eva, will also star in the Disney+ Marvel series She-Hulk, playing a character named Amelia. The series, starring Tatiana Malany in the title role, started filming this week in Atlanta. (Deadline)
Christine Elise McCarthy and Alex Vincent are the latest Child’s Play franchise stars who will join their titular creepy doll co-star in the upcoming USA/Syfy series Chucky. McCarthy (Beverly Hills 90210) will again play Kyle, which she also played in Child’s Play 2 and Cult of Chucky, while Vincent will play Andy Barclay, a role he played in the original 1988 Child’s Playmovie, as well as Child’s Play 2 and Curse of Chucky. Original movie star Brad Dourif is returning as the voice of Chucky in the series, while Dourif’s daughter Fiona will reprise her role as Nica, which she played in Curse of Chucky and Cult of Chucky. Jennifer Tilly (Bride of Chucky, Seed of Chucky, Curse of Chucky, and Cult of Chucky), Barbara Alyn Woods (One Tree Hill) and her daughter Alyvia Alyn Lind (The Young and the Restless), and Devon Sawa (Final Destination) also star. (EW)
District 9 star Sharlto Copley has joined the upcoming second season of Natasha Lyonne’s Netflix hit Russian Doll. No details have been released about the storyline or new characters for season 2 of the dramedy. (Deadline)
All-American star Jordan Belfi will join the cast of NBC’s Good Girls for a recurring role this season. He’ll play Z, who Dean (Matthew Lillard) meets when he gets mixed up with a multi-level marketing group. (Deadline)
New Amsterdam star Anupam Kher, one of the series’ original cast members as Dr. Vijay Kapoor, has left the series to spend more time with his wife, actress Kirron, as she battles cancer. (EW)
Rob Delaney will co-star with Chiwetel Ejiofor in Showtime’s The Man Who Fell to Earth. Catastrophe alum Delaney will play Hatch Flood, the black sheep of a wealthy tech family who becomes involved with Ejiofor’s titular alien character.
Andrew Dice Clay and Pepi Sonuga (9-1-1) are joining the cast of Hulu’s Pam & Tommy limited series about the infamous sex tape made by former marrieds Pam Anderson and Tommy Lee. Clay will play a shady loan shark character, while Sonuga will play Anderson’s best friend. (Deadline)
(Photo by Dave J Hogan/Getty Images for Entone)
Hulu is developing a limited series adaptation of the classic 1915 John Buchan thriller novel and 1935 Alfred Hitchcock movie The 39 Steps, starring Benedict Cumberbatch. Reteaming with his Patrick Melrose director Edward Berger on the project, Cumberbatch will play Richard Hanney, a man who becomes a pawn in a global conspiracy to change the world, via 39 steps. The actor and Berger are also executive producers on the limited series. (Deadline)
Magic Mike star Channing Tatum and director Steven Soderbergh are among the executive producers of The Real Magic Mike, an upcoming HBO Max reality series in which 10 men will compete for cash and a shot to perform in the Magic Mike Live stage show in Las Vegas.
Kenan co-star Don Johnson confirmed he’s set to begin production in San Francisco on a Nash Bridges reboot that may be a full reboot or a two-hour movie, airing on NBC or Peacock. He’ll be joined by original co-stars Cheech Marin and Jeff Perry. (TVLine)
EPIX has greenlit the 10-episode sci-fi horror series From, created by John Griffin (Crater). The cliffhanger-packed drama “unravels the mystery of a nightmarish town in middle America that traps all those who enter. As the unwilling residents fight to keep a sense of normalcy and search for a way out, they must also survive the threats of the surrounding forest – including the terrifying creatures that come out when the sun goes down.” Game of Thrones and Lost director Jack Bender directs the first four episodes of From, which begins production in May in Nova Scotia for a planned 2022 premiere.
(Photo by Russ Martin/CBS)
Star Trek: Picard and upcoming Strange New Worlds co-showrunner Akiva Goldsman says the new series, which stars Anson Mount as original Trek captain Christopher Pike, will be more episodic, like the original series that launched the Trek universe, with stories jumping from horror to “hard sci-fi” to more comedic turns, like the classic “The Trouble with Tribbles” installment. (THR)
Ron Howard and his character-actor brother Clint are writing a joint memoir about their lives as child actors. The Boys: A Memoir of Hollywood and Family will be released on October 12 from William Morrow, and will unfold a story “by turns confessional, nostalgic, heartwarming, and harrowing” that “lifts the lid on the Howard brothers’ closely held lives. It’s the journey of a tight four-person family unit that held fast in an unforgiving business and of two brothers who survived ‘child-actor syndrome’ to become fulfilled adults.”
VAX LINE: The Concert to Reunite the World will air and stream on May 8 as a concert to try to inspire vaccine confidence around the world. Selena Gomez hosts and performers include Foo Fighters, Jennifer Lopez, Eddie Vedder, J Balvin and H.E.R. for the special, which will air on ABC, CBS, FOX, YouTube, and iHeartMedia.
Demi Lovato may be doing double duty for NBC, as the network ordered pilots for her comedy Hungry and romantic comedy Someone Out There. The autobiographical Hungry stars Lovato (who also executive produces) as the member of an eating disorder group, and the romantic comedy stars the singer and actress as one half of a stubborn duo who are inspired by strangers to change their ways and potentially find love (and possibly with each other).
Netflix will be the home for the live-action movie adaptation of the 1979 TV series Gundam, which Brian K. Vaughn (Y: The Last Man) will write and Kong: Skull Island director Jordan Vogt-Roberts will direct.
Colton Underwood, star of season 23 of ABC’s The Bachelor, announced he is gay during an interview on Good Morning America on Wednesday, and on Thursday Variety reported he is filming a reality show for Netflix about living as a gay man.
The original cast of NBC’s ER, including George Clooney, Noah Wyle, Laura Innes, Anthony Edwards, Paul Crane, Ming-Na Wen, Gloria Reuben, Julianna Margulies, Goran Visnjic, Yvette Freeman, CCH Pounder, and Alex Kingston, are reuniting on April 22 in a live, virtual gathering on Stars in the House, in a benefit for the Waterkeeper Alliance, the global nonprofit focusing on clean water. Reuben is the president of Waterkeeper Alliance, and the reunion will stream on People magazine’s social media platforms at 8 PM ET on April 22.
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It’s been 10 years since The Walking Dead shuffled onto our screens. The series went on to spawn an entire universe of zombie drama, including Fear the Walking Dead and YA horror roadtrip The Walking Dead: World Beyond. If you’ve already checked out those, here are five other shows with horror and post-apocalyptic melancholy that we think you’ll enjoy more than a zombie scarfing down a bowl of brains. Dig in!
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(Photo by Tommaso Boddi/Getty Images for AMC)
It should come as no surprise that Christmas is not Greg Nicotero’s favorite holiday.
“Do I even have to answer that question? Of course Halloween is my favorite holiday,” The Walking Dead and Shudder’s Creepshow series executive producer told Rotten Tomatoes. “I know that there’s going to be a bunch of zombie heads on spikes in my front yard for sure. The zombie heads are easy. The spikes are harder for me, because now I have to make them. But I got a bunch of zombie heads that I want to line up along the street outside of my house.”
Trick-or-treaters, be on the lookout, because as the co-founder of the Oscar and Emmy-winning KNB EFX Group special effects studio, Nicotero’s lawn decorations of horror will obviously top anything you can buy at Target. In addition to the more than 400 TV and movie projects he and KNB have worked on since they formed in 1988, Nicotero’s handiwork is an integral part of the look of The Walking Dead, which he has been a part of since the show premiered on Halloween 2010.
In honor of the series’ 10th anniversary, we talked to Nicotero about how he was actually part of the series before it became a series thanks to his friendship with Frank Darabont, why he thinks the show’s Western vibes are a big reason it propelled zombies into the mainstream, and how the upcoming spin-off with Carol (Melissa McBride) and Daryl (played by his good friend and Nic & Norman’s restaurant partner Norman Reedus) has been building since season 2.
Nicotero also talks about the cast and crew’s famously close relationships (including the only person he told about how nervous he was to direct his first episode), how TWD and Creepshow are dealing with filming during the pandemic, and the very cool zombie idea he’d like to try out before The Walking Dead wraps after season 11.
(Photo by Mark Hill/AMC)
Kim Potts for Rotten Tomatoes: How are you doing?
Greg Nicotero: I’m really good. We’re filming away on Creepshow, and it’s been super fun, surprisingly. I was a little concerned about all of the crazy COVID procedures making it more tedious and less fun, but it’s been a blast. The actors have been great, and the crew has been great. We’re having a really good time, so it feels great to be back at it again. You get to set, and you’ve got your mask on and your face shield, but when you’re in it, you forget about all that stuff, and you get a chance to focus on what you love doing.
You’re also working on the additional Walking Dead season 10 episode that will air next year?
Nicotero: Yeah. The challenge is sort of getting out of one bubble and getting myself into another bubble, then getting tested, then doing set work, and then tested again, because you can’t go from one set to the other without getting tested and put into another bubble. We probably started prepping Walking Dead stuff back in July, just sort of making adjustments in what we were doing for the show to allow for accelerated makeup times and easier application and all kinds of scenarios. I was working on Walking Dead July, August, and September, and then in September we started shooting Creepshow again. It’s been kind of busy.
Has it forced you to make any storyline changes in either show?
Nicotero: The Walking Dead stuff is really intended to be these kind of episodes that are a little more production-friendly … because you’re dipping your toes in the water a little bit. With Creepshow, we’re primarily a stage show, so we don’t have to go out into the world very often, and that allows us to be a little bit more self-contained. Fortunately, not a lot of people kiss in either show, so we’re not worrying too much about somebody kissing someone. It’s definitely a change in the way that we are accustomed to doing things, but so far, so good.
Are you directing any of the six remaining season 10 episodes?
Nicotero: No. Originally, (TWD showrunner) Angela (Kang) had called and asked me if I wanted to and, unfortunately, because of when the pandemic hit and everything shut down, Creepshow was set to start shooting, and we had prepped the first two episodes. I think in my head originally, I was like, “Well, I can shoot Creepshow and then run over and do Walking Dead,” and then I thought, “That’s insane. I would literally die.” Until January, I’m all the way up to my eyeballs in Creepshow.
(Photo by AMC)
Halloween this year marks the 10th anniversary of The Walking Dead. Does it feel to you like it’s been a decade? I always think of the show as all of you making an hour-long movie, for TV, every week.
Nicotero: Yeah, it feels like it’s been 100 years. Honestly, time has a very different meaning when you’re on a show of this magnitude for this duration, because there are some episodes I remember like they were yesterday. There are other episodes that I’m like, “I don’t even remember that,” just because we’ve done so many episodes. Even when I go to the studio, and I’ll stand on the backlot and be like, “This is where the prison was, and then that’s where the Heaps were, and then, oh, this is the scene where they thought that Carol was dead and they put a grave in the prison field …” There are numerous beautiful moments of the show, and some of them get lost in the fact that we’ve been on for such a long time, and I kind of forget some of them.
I just recently went back and rewatched Game of Thrones with my son, Deven, and there was so much stuff that I was able to appreciate about the show going back and seeing it after a little bit of time. I’m looking forward to doing that with Walking Dead, going back to the beginning and really sort of looking at what the DNA of the show was then and the great scenes that we crafted and the great moments with Chandler (Riggs) and with Emily (Kinney). There are so many people that you start going back and thinking about what amazing work they did. God bless Scott Wilson, because I had some of the greatest moments of my career with Scott. I’ll be forever grateful that I got a chance to be a part of his life.
I don’t think I’ve ever talked to you about this: how did your involvement with the show begin?
Nicotero: Frank (Darabont) is one of my best friends, still to this day, and probably a year before the show was ever put into production, he had given me the script and was like, “Okay, we’re going to do The Walking Dead.” The irony behind all of this was I remember buying the first issue of the comic book when I was working with Robert Rodriguez in Austin, Texas. There was a great comic book shop there, and I bought the first issue. Frank and I had always talked about the idea of wanting to do a zombie project, because he loved Night of the Living Dead. His No. 1 criteria was, it’s got to be the right stories. It really needs to be about survival and what people do, what they become in order to survive.
I remember one night specifically, one dinner, where we were talking about it. I don’t think we ever thought about it as a TV show, because this was years before Walking Dead even happened. At that point, zombie television wasn’t even a thing. No one would have ever imagined doing a TV show with zombies in it. We were talking about a movie. Then a couple of years later he sent the script over and was like, “Hey, man, this is what we’re going to do.” We had designed a couple of zombie busts that he took to his meetings to help sell the show, because one of the big questions that every network asked was, “Well, how are you going to do the zombies? No one’s ever done anything like this on television before.” (Frank) was like, “Oh, it’s easy. I got this guy, Greg Nicotero, and he makes zombie busts, and this is what the zombies are going to look like.”
(Photo by Scott Garfield/AMC)
There are so few of you left from the beginning, but you’ve been there even before it was even a show.
Nicotero: I remember talking about the opening scene with Frank, with a little girl at the gas station, and I said, “You know, Frank, the Dawn of the Dead remake had a very similar sequence where there’s a little girl zombie at the beginning,” and he was like, “Yeah, I don’t care about that. It doesn’t matter. This is going to be our show.”
I would have never imagined that the mainstream would have sort of caught up to everything that I have loved since I was a kid, which is zombie movies. Before The Walking Dead, zombies were a very, very niche sort of sub-genre that appealed to a specific group of people. I think what Frank was able to do was really break the mold and show that The Walking Dead really is a Western. Andy (Lincoln) always, always talked about that a lot; his inspiration for Rick Grimes was Clint Eastwood and The Outlaw Josie Wales. That was something that was very important, because a lot of the actors, when we did season 1, they hadn’t seen a lot of zombie stuff. They hadn’t seen Night of the Living Dead. They hadn’t seen Dawn of the Dead. Even though that was a lot of the inspiration for the show, they were approaching it like Frank, from sort of a dramatic survival standpoint.
I have to say that the cast that we put together for season 1, with Sarah Callies and Steven Yeun and Jon Bernthal and Laurie Holden and Jeff DeMunn … what a cast. I mean, the cast was absolutely astonishing and that’s where Frank always excels, his ensemble casting. He did it in The Green Mile. He did it in Shawshank (Redemption). He did it in The Mist. And, of course, there are Norman (Reedus) and Melissa (McBride), who have been on the show since day one.
Do you think it’s that focus on those aspects, those dramatic aspects and the kind of survival, the universal, human themes is what really helped the show cross over to the mainstream?
Nicotero: Absolutely. Absolutely, because a lot of times in zombie movies, prior to The Walking Dead, the gore was the big element, the horror was the big element, and I think there were a lot of instances where people might have been turned off by the gore. Even when you talk to people that watch The Walking Dead, they had this preconceived notion about it until they watched it, and when they experienced it through the eyes of Rick Grimes, who is waking up in the hospital, and he’s learning about what the world is, the first thing people would say is, “It’s not a show about zombies.” I’m like, “No, it’s a show about survival, and it’s a show about what people are willing to do in a situation like that.” Of course the zombies are a big part of it, and I’m very proud of the contribution that I’ve made to the show and that my team has made to the show, but a lot of the drive for the show has been about those specific character moments where the audience can identify with Maggie or Glenn or Hershel and put themselves in those characters’ positions and imagine what they would or would not have been able to do.
(Photo by Gene Page/AMC)
Do you have a favorite episode or storyline? You’ve been involved in so many of the great ones, but can you choose just one?
Nicotero: I would probably say one of my favorite episodes is the episode where Merle fights The Governor and Merle dies [“This Sorrowful Life”]. The moment where Norman just literally poured his soul out when he saw Merle as a walker. I’ll never forget filming that. I’ll never forget people calling me and saying, “How the fuck did you make me cry in a show like this?” I’ve had so many amazing moments working with Norman and working with Melissa. I mean, having filmed Andy’s last episode, and the number of people that I’ve had to kill on the show, that’s never fun.
I don’t know if I could pick just one episode. I think the episode where the walkers invade Alexandria [“Start to Finish”], and that was like our Night of Living Dead homage. I would probably go back and watch episodes and not even remember like, “Oh, I shot that episode. That’s right,” because we’ve had so many, so many moments. Negan’s introduction [“Last Day on Earth”, which was certainly controversial, but I’m tremendously proud of what we did, and Jeffrey (Dean Morgan’s) performance and shooting 12 pages of dialogue in two nights is, it’s a little bonkers in the TV schedule. So yeah, I just don’t know if I could pick one.
Has the show ever made you cry?
Nicotero: I think there have been characters that died (that have made me cry). I think the moment with Jeffrey DeMunn, that was the first episode I had ever directed [“Judge, Jury, Executioner”], and, yeah, I got emotional when I shot it and when I watched the first cut. Chandler was a little boy. I remember Chandler running down through the field and shooting his reaction to seeing Jeff on the ground with his stomach torn open and blood bubbling out of it, and just how hysterical everybody got. To see the fear in Jeffrey’s eyes when Norman walked over with the gun and said, “I’m sorry, brother,” it was intense.
That episode was just … I was so terrified, because it was the first hour of television that I had ever directed, and I had my little graphs and my little charts of where the camera would go. I think probably Andy was the only person that I had shared with him like, “I’m scared sh–less here,” but I trusted my instincts, I trusted my camera department, and I trusted my actors. If you look at the episodes in season 2, 3, and 3, those episodes are so dense. There’s so much story that we’re telling, and it just propelled us. If you watch that episode, which was written by Angela, there’s so much. You’re telling an entire season’s worth of story in that one episode.
That’s what I mean. They were like movies every week.
Nicotero: Oh, without a doubt. There’s not one moment where there’s a frame of film that doesn’t serve something, that doesn’t serve a character, a story point, the propulsion of the show as it’s moving forward. I’ve rewatched that episode recently, and it’s just crazy what we did. I think we shot that in seven days maybe.
(Photo by Gene Page/AMC)
You are responsible for starting The Walking Dead Zombie School, to train the zombie actors on the show. How has that evolved through the seasons? I’m guessing that just from watching the show, people are coming to you a little more prepared at this point.
Nicotero: Definitely. In fact, I don’t think we’ve done Zombie School in two years, because at this point, we have our troupe of zombie performers and actors, and I think the people that we love, we bring them back over and over again. At the beginning, we wanted to make sure that we were maintaining the aesthetic of what we wanted for the zombies, but also, they had to be able to perform with the actors. They have to be able to die well, they had to be able to be convincing as zombies. What you don’t want to do is spend an entire hour or two fine tuning background zombie performances that would then be taking away from shooting the rest of the scene, so it was always very important that the zombies were well directed in terms of their performance and what was expected of them. Every season, I would say we’d probably end up with like 20 people that were just standout performers, and a lot of them initially came from a place in Georgia called Netherworld, which is a haunted house attraction that would open in September/October. A lot of those people that had been working at that attraction ended up being some of our best zombie performers.
The Walking Dead cast and crew have been known to be very close, even though there are a lot of changes with all the character deaths. How have you maintained that?
Nicotero: Well, listen, the dynamic of the cast changes as certain actors leave and other actors come in, so it evolves. It’s a very organic thing. I think one of the unique things about any show that has a tightknit family is when you’re in the trenches with them, you’re sharing something that you can’t share with anybody else. That was something I learned working with Quentin Tarantino. When we were doing Inglourious Basterds, he had looked at me one day and said, “You know, there’s nobody else I would ever want to be in the trenches with,” and that really stuck with me a lot, because I realized that it’s a shared experience, and I have a bond with this crew and these actors that no one can ever take away from me and no one can replace. I still keep in touch with most of the actors from the show, even if it’s once a month, just a quick text saying, “Hey, how’s it going?” I talk to Sonequa (Martin-Green) a lot. I talk to (Michael) Cudlitz a lot. I talk to Alanna (Masterson) a lot. Of course, on the show, Norman and Jeffrey and Christian (Serratos) and Lauren (Cohan). Even during the pandemic, I would just find myself calling Khary (Payton) to just see how he is doing. or I would call Seth (Gilliam).
When you’ve been in these intense situations with these people for so long, they just become part of your life. I’m grateful, forever grateful, for that and for the friendships that I have. I talked to Jeffrey DeMunn not long ago. It’s like that never goes away. When you work on a movie, that goes for six months or eight months, then it’s gone, and you move on. When you’re doing serialized television, you come back year after year, and you come back with the same people. You watch their children grow up, and you watch them get married or divorced or whatever happens, but you end up being a part of that whole scenario. It’s fun for me to look at Andy’s kids and Jeffrey (Dean Morgan)’s kids. Jeffrey’s son is really into special effects makeup, so I would send him little makeup kits and little zombie wounds and things. I send videos to Andy from set of the creatures from Creepshow so that he can show it to his kids, because they’re sort of now at that age where they’re kind of fascinated with the monster aspect of it.
(Photo by AMC)
You mentioned Carol and Daryl, and how Norman and Melissa are the other people still with the show who have been there from the beginning. Their characters, separately and together, are so beloved that they’re going to be their own spinoff. Since you’ve witnessed it all, is that relationship something that developed organically?
Nicotero: With Daryl, that was a creation of Frank Darabont, and I remember specifically when we were casting for the show, Frank had called me one day and said, “Hey, I’m thinking about this guy Norman Reedus to play Daryl, and I know that you had worked with him on Masters of Horror. What did you think of him?” I gave him a huge thumbs up, but I said, “Listen, let’s reach out to the director and get a review from John Carpenter.” John couldn’t say enough good things about Norman. The next thing I knew, I was sitting in the van dressed up as a zombie for (“Tell It to the Frogs”), and Norman’s sitting in the chair next to me. I didn’t even realize that the deal had gone through. He didn’t recognize me because I was dressed up as a zombie. I had my zombie teeth in, and I was trying to talk to him. Ironically enough, I am the first zombie that Daryl kills in the series.
I think the way that season 2 was crafted and the way that Daryl’s character evolved into somebody who was not going to give up looking for Carol’s daughter, Sophia, that’s really where that bond began, because of Daryl’s undying commitment to find Sophia. Between Melissa’s brilliant performance as Carol and Norman, they just fell together so perfectly that you couldn’t have planned it. It just worked amazingly well and kept growing from there.
You are an executive producer, the special effects guru, and a go-to director on the series. What do you still want to do in The Walking Dead universe?
Nicotero: Oh, boy. I was thinking about this the other night, that it would be kind of interesting to have an episode where we actually follow a walker all the way from the beginning, like the opening scene would be a person is killed, and they’re on the ground dead, and then they come back as a walker, and we actually follow them through the world as they come into contact with different people. I just think it would be a unique perspective, to see an episode not necessarily shot from the point of view of the zombie, but kind of being with a walker as it’s killed and then reanimated and then going into a herd. We kind of had a little bit of that in the beginning of season 2 when we started showing the beginning of the herd that overruns Hershel’s farm, but I just think we could do something really fun and special with that.
The Walking Dead returns to AMC in 2021.
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Just because the flagship is coming to an end doesn’t mean there won’t be more of The Walking Dead: AMC has announced that there are not one but two new spin-offs in the works. Other major developments this week include an update on the production of Atlanta‘s much-delayed third season, a big new TV role for former Veronica Mars guest star Jessica Chastain, yet another The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air update, and much more. Read on for the biggest stories in TV and streaming from the past week.
(Photo by Jackson Lee Davis/AMC)
The Walking Dead might be ending after an expanded 11th season, but the world of the AMC hit will live on in two new spin-offs — including an anthology series and one based on fan favorite duo Daryl Dixon (Norman Reedus) and Carol Peletier (Melissa McBride).
The two original cast members will return for the latter series, which was created by TWD universe boss Scott Gimple and current TWD showrunner Angela Kang and is set to premiere in 2023.
“It’s bittersweet to bring The Walking Dead to an end, but I could not be more excited to be working with Scott Gimple and AMC to develop a new series for Daryl and Carol. Working with Norman Reedus and Melissa McBride has been a highlight of my career, and I’m thrilled that we get to keep telling stories together,” Kang said in a statement announcing the news.
The second spin-off, Tales of the Walking Dead, is an anthology that will allow the franchise to dig into the backstories of existing characters, introduce new ones, and tell new stories in the world in standalone episodes or arcs.
McBride said in a statement that she’s thrilled she’ll get to explore the “Caryl” dynamic further in a spin-off with Reedus, her fellow original cast member.
“Their shared history is long, and each’s own personal fight to survive, even longer — the more obvious aspect of what has kept them close and loyal,” she wrote. “But there is also a rather mysterious aspect to their fondness for one another that I enjoy, and their playfulness when the world permits.”
Reedus’ statement was similar, singling out his character’s unique relationship with Carol.
“Daryl’s relationship with Carol has always been my favorite relationship on the show — sorry, Rick. I love the way these characters interact and relate to each other on so many levels and can’t wait to see where their ride goes from here.”
(Photo by Guy D'Alema/FX)
Fans of Donald Glover‘s groundbreaking comedy Atlanta are no stranger to delays — the second season premiered a full two years after the first — but the planned third season, which was supposed to film in 2020 and premiere in early 2021, has been pushed to an undetermined date thanks to COVID-19.
There’s good news, though: Because of the delay, Glover and his writing team have written all of season 3 — and all of season 4, too.
FX Networks chairman John Landgraf told reporters on Wednesday that the complications have come from scheduling all of the series’ in-demand stars, including Brian Tyree Henry, LaKeith Stanfield, and Zazie Beetz.
“One of the things that’s been an unexpected boon from COVID-19 is that writers have had a lot of time to write,” Landgraf said. “However, the availability [of actors] has been pushed back because of the [pandemic].
The third season will take place mainly in Europe, as Henry’s Al and Glover’s Earn flew overseas for a tour at the end of season 2, but season 4 is set back in Atlanta. The current production plan will see both seasons filmed concurrently — 10 episodes for season 3 and eight for season 4 — so they’ll both be in the can for future premiere dates.
https://twitter.com/nicolebyer/status/1304113750308339712
TBS is going really, really big with Go-Big Show, its new hourlong “extreme talent competition” featuring “monster trucks, alligator trainers, stunt archery and other radical feats, the program celebrates daring acts alongside personal, behind-the-scenes stories from the challengers as they battle head-to-head to impress the judges and advance toward the finale’s ultimate $100,000 prize.”
Celebrity judges include Snoop Dogg, Rosario Dawson, Jennifer Nettles, and “The American Nightmare” Cody, and the series is hosted by comedian Bert Kreischer. It’s currently being filmed in Macon, GA under strict health and safety protocols.
Meanwhile, the network has hired John Cena and Nicole Byer to host its revamped version of Wipeout. The duo will provide commentary as contestants complete the series’ trademark wacky obstacle courses (big balls included), with Camille Kostek acting as field reporter.
The upcoming original cast reunion isn’t the only new Fresh Prince of Bel-Air content headed to TV: Will Smith announced this week that Peacock has ordered two seasons of a dramatic reboot called Bel-Air.
According to Peacock, the new series is a “serialized one-hour dramatic analogue of the ’90s sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air that leans into the original premise: Will’s complicated journey from the streets of West Philadelphia to the gated mansions of Bel-Air. With a reimagined vision, Bel-Air will dive deeper into the inherent conflicts, emotions and biases that were impossible to fully explore in a 30-minute sitcom format, while still delivering swagger and nods to the original show.”
And it’s all based on a viral parody trailer from Morgan Cooper, who will also direct, co-write, and co-executive produce alongside showrunner Chris Collins.
Freeform has teamed up with Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle star (and former Barack Obama White House staffer) Kal Penn for a new unscripted series, Kal Penn Approves This Message, that will help reach out to Millennial and Gen Z voters. The series, which premieres September 22, is described as a “smart, irreverent unscripted comedy series” featuring funny field pieces and a sit-down between Penn and a featured guests. Topics will include voting basics, voter empowerment, the economy, and climate change.
The CW is also hoping its viewers stay civically engaged with its new Vote Actually campaign, featuring PSAs starring the network’s on-air talent encouraging the audience to register to vote, obtain a mail-in ballot if applicable and know the deadlines in their individual states.
The upcoming horror anthology Monsterland, set to debut October 2 on Netflix, released its first trailer this week. The creepy two-minute clip reveals just a portion of the mermaids, fallen angels, and “other strange beasts” that inspire the horror of the series, which comes from Mary Laws and is based on Nathan Ballingrud’s story collection North-American Lake Monsters. Stars include Kaitlyn Dever, Jonathan Tucker, Nicole Beharie, Kelly Marie Tran, Mike Colter, and many, many more.
More trailers and teasers released this week:
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(Photo by Richard Olley/Columbia Pictures)
Jessica Chastain is headed to TV in George & Tammy, a new limited series from Spectrum Originals and Paramount Network about country music power couple Tammy Wynette and George Jones and the complicated relationship that inspired some of the most iconic country music of all time. The series will air exclusively for Spectrum cable subscribers, and after a nine month window it’ll air on Paramount Network and the forthcoming streaming service from ViacomCBS.
Production on Season 2 of Greg Nicotero’s Shudder horror anthology Creepshow is officially underway in Atlanta. New stars this year include Anna Camp, Keith David, Ashley Laurence, and Josh McDermitt.
Titans‘ Alan Ritchson will play the titular role in Amazon’s upcoming Jack Reacher series, about the former military man at the center of Lee Child’s bestselling novel series. And don’t worry — he’ll continue playing a superhero on Titans, too.
Saturday Night Live featured player Ego Nwodim has been promoted to full cast member for the late-night sketch comedy stalwart’s 46th season.
Denise Richards is leaving The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills after two seasons, according to Variety. The most recent season of the Bravo hit featured the actress fighting with her cast mates amid rumors of her hooking up with former Housewife Brandi Glanville, though Richards has denied the rumors.
Karrueche Tran has joined the second season of BET’s Games People Play, alongside Lauren London and series regulars Sarunas J. Jackson, Karen Obilom, Parker McKenna Posey, Jackie Long, and Kendall Kyndall.
HBO Max’s dog-grooming competition Haute Dog will feature celebrity dog groomer Jess Rona and Emmy nominee Robin Thede judging the canine makeovers, with comedian Matt Rogers hosting. It was filmed under strict COVID-19 precautions this summer and premieres Sept. 24.
(Photo by ABC)
The black-ish universe is getting even bigger: ABC is eyeing a third spin-off from the network’s long-running sitcom. According to the Hollywood Reporter, the newest installment would be old-ish, following Laurence Fishburne and Jenifer Lewis‘s characters. The new series would join the college-set grown-ish and the ’80s-set prequel, mixed-ish.
Doogie Howser, M.D. is getting a new look: Disney + announced it has ordered a rebooted version of the classic series about a teen doctor, this time starring a 16-year-old girl prodigy balancing a new medical career with life as a teenager. Doogie Kameāloha, M.D. is a 10-episode comedy following Lahela “Doogie” Kameāloha, a mixed race 16-year-old girl with an Irish mother and Hawaiian father who guide her (and sometimes complicate things) as she juggles her responsibilities. It’s set in present-day Hawaii with showrunner Kourtney Kang at the helm.
Starz’s series adaptation of Blindspotting is a go: The network officially ordered a spin-off of the 2018 feature film from Daveed Diggs (Hamilton, Snowpiercer) and Rafael Casal (Bad Education, Are You Afraid of the Dark?). Both men will write and serve as executive producers, with Casal taking showrunner duties in addition to a recurring role. The series will focus on teacher Ashley (Hamilton‘s Jasmine Cephas Jones, who will also produce and was also in the original film), whose partner of 12 years was suddenly incarcerated, forcing Ashley and their young son to move in with his family.
Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos have signed a deal with Lifetime to produce two new movies for the network’s Ripped from the Headlines series. They’ll serve as executive producers alongside Albert Bianchini in the two true crime-themed projects, which are scheduled to premiere in 2021.
HBO Max has ordered a script for a series based on the Newberry Medal-winning mystery The Westing Game. The YA book follows the events that unfold when 16 people gather for the reading of eccentric, game-loving millionaire Samuel W. Westing’s will.
Fantasy novel series The Wheel of Time is one of Amazon Prime Video’s most anticipated upcoming adaptations — next to a little series called The Lord of the Rings, of course. The streamer served up a delectable tease to fans this week.
https://twitter.com/WOTonPrime/status/1303755050850885640
(Photo by Amazon Prime Video)
Updated as of March 22, 2020
We’ve tracked the best (and worst) cold-weather TV and streaming offerings since mid-December, gathering a list of all the premieres this season – series, miniseries, and TV movies across cable, broadcast, and streaming – and ranked them by Tomatometer. And now it’s time to say goodbye. We’ve closed down the list as of March 19, the last day of winter.
The final list of 110 titles includes every eligible new TV season or streaming movie that premiered since December 13, with highlights like The Witcher on Netflix, AMC’s Better Call Saul, The Expanse on Amazon Prime Video, Star Trek: Picard on CBS All Access, the final season of Schitt’s Creek on Pop, Freeform’s Party of Five, HBO’s The New Pope, 9-1-1: Lone Star on Fox, Awkwafina Is Nora From Queens on Comedy Central, Katy Keene on The CW, Briarpatch on USA Network, Mythic Quest: Raven’s Banquet on Apple TV+, the final season of Homeland on Showtime, High Fidelity on Hulu, Outlander on Starz, Togo on Disney+, and more!
To be included, each TV show on the list must have received at least 10 critic reviews, while TV movies had to have at least 20 reviews. So if you’re wondering why your favorite show or TV movie isn’t on here, it likely just doesn’t yet have enough reviews to qualify under our criteria. And remember: a Certified Fresh badge generally means that a show or film has earned the respect of the majority of reviewers weighing in (at least 20 for a TV season and 40 for films), including some of the industry’s top critics.
Just added: Visible: Out on Television (miniseries), Queen Sono: season 1, Brockmire: season 4, Motherland: Fort Salem: season 1, Feel Good: season 1
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(Photo by Disney+)
In a world in which the most anticipated TV return of the year, Game of Thrones — the title we all expected would be a top contender in this list — crashed and burned in a fiery three-episode Rotten streak to end the epic HBO series, we can’t help but be surprised about the midyear lineup in our ranked list of the best TV shows of the year through late June.
We collected all of the Certified Fresh TV and streaming titles of 2019 — the season premieres that occurred January through December 31 that are Fresh with at least 20 critics reviews (five of those being from Top Critics) — to provide you with a list of the best 2019 TV shows you should be watching, according to critics. They are listed below from those that were Certified Fresh at 75% or above, but subsequently fell below that threshold for CF designation, to this year’s 20 members of the 100% Club, an enviable group whose members have gotten a positive review from every critic who’s seen them.
The year’s surprises:
In our most recent and final update to our 2019 list, Watchmen took a tumble in the ranking, although its score remains above 95%; a Rotten episode 8 score sent American Horror Story: 1984 lower, as well; and a number of late-season additions peppered the list from top to bottom.
Among the recent additions, Adult Swim’s Rick and Morty season 4 and Work in Progress season 1 score coveted spots in the 100% Club — coveted, for instance, by titles like The Expanse, which is two Top Critic reviews away from a 100% Certified Fresh score for its fourth season. (The space-opera’s third season is only one Top Critic review away from the honor.)
Meanwhile, Apple TV+’s Dickinson squeaks onto the list with a 75% score, joining the first seasons of The Twilight Zone and Modern Love and miniseries I Am the Night as 2019 TV seasons that flirted with Certified Fresh and won.
And the final word on 2019 TV – that is, until someone writes a review that awards another 2019 series Certified Fresh status (welcome, Dublin Murders!): Season 2 of Amazon comedy Fleabag remains the most appreciated season of TV in 2019 with a 100% Tomatometer score on 90 reviews. Fleabag season 2 is also the best of the decade, in fact (see that list here).
Read on to find out where popular titles The Mandalorian (season 1), The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (season 3), and Servant (season 1) made their debut.
Did your favorite 2019 show make the list? Have a look at our ranking and see what series from this year are Certified Fresh.
Just added (1/2/20): Dublin Murders
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(Photo by New Line Cinema)
TV is set for an onslaught of high-profile fantasy epics in the next few years, and we at Rotten Tomatoes can’t wait. Witness the buzz around The Lord of the Rings television series in development at Amazon — acquired for $250 million and expected to ultimately cost more than $1 billion — along with the Gormenghast series announced in 2018 by FreemantleMedia North America, and HBO’s endless plans for the Game of Thrones world. It’s a big change from the genre’s historical position in the medium.
It may be strange to think of it now, but Game of Thrones was a risky proposition when HBO first began development of the series, and its prospects were buoyed by the fact that its more fantastic elements appeared later in the narrative (we had to wait so long for those dragons). Prior to that, fantasy was relegated to syndicated fare like Conan the Adventurer and Hercules: The Legendary Journeys. Xena: Warrior Princess was an outlier in terms of quality storytelling, but its occasionally cheesy effects proved to the television executives that fantasy TV was too expensive, while other series proved it was often built on poor story standards. GoT changed that perception, even if the fantasy shows that emerged in its wake — The Shannara Chronicles and Shadowhunters for example — proved closer in story quality to the BeastMaster television series.
But The Lord of the Rings and the Game of Thrones prequels are not the only promising fantasy series in development at the moment. A number of classic fantasy epics and novels will become television thanks to the power of streaming services like Amazon, cable options like BBC America, and other outlets that are worth spotlighting. There are also a few notable series not yet scooped up by the powers in television that we think should get the TV treatment as soon as possible. So here is a handy list of the fantasy series currently in development and a couple we hope will follow them.
TV Release Date: most likely 2021
Based On: J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, an epic tale of four Hobbits, a Wizard, an Elf, two Men and a Dwarf attempting to destroy the Dark Lord Sauron’s master weapon without letting him discover their plan. A war across most of Middle-earth ensues.
The Fanbase: The obsessive devotees of Tolkien’s legendarium and fans of the Peter Jackson film series.
Everything We Know So Far: Amazon is committed to produce a five-season series based on The Lord of the Rings in partnership with Tolkien’s estate and the various rights holders of the Rings and Hobbit film series. Amazon renewed the series for season 2, while season 1 is still early in pre-production in New Zealand, Deadline reported in November. The renewal necessitates a break in filming season 1, so that the writers room can reassemble and address season 2 plotting and scripts — possibly facilitating simultaneous or back-to-back filming of seasons 1 and 2.
While early reports speculated that the series would focus on a younger Aragorn, who roamed the lands of Middle-earth as a Dunedain ranger under various names like Strider and Thorongil, Amazon’s own teases contradict that theory. In February 2019, Amazon released an interactive map of Middle-earth extending into the far east region not included on maps Tolkien made himself; though he sketched out some topography for the area in his notes. The streaming platform also included this enigmatic quote from Tolkien’s Ring Poem: “Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky.” But after weeks of teasing, the map finally changed to reveal a Second Age setting — the time in which the Elven rings were forged and the Dark Lord Sauron conquered lands in the southern parts of Middle-earth.
The streamer also released the series’ social media pages on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.
In July of 2019, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom director J.A. Bayona signed on to helm the first two episodes of the series. He and producing partner Belén Atienza will also serve as executive producers.
(Photo by HBO: Joseph Mawle as Benjen Stark in 'Game of Thrones')
The cast includes Robert Aramayo, Owain Arthur, Nazanin Boniadi, Joseph Mawle, and Morfydd Clark as Galadriel. In March of 2021, Tom Budge announced his departure from the series, citing the producers’ decision to take his character in a different direction. That same month, Wayne Che Yip took over directing duties in New Zealand.
Read More: “Everything We Know About The Lord of the Rings Amazon Series”
It’s Most Like: The Lord of the Rings film series. Since the TV rights to Tolkien’s work remained with his estate, hammering out a deal with the likes of Warner Bros. Pictures, New Line Cinema, and MGM suggests Amazon has an interest in making the series visually consistent with Jackson’s vision of Middle-earth.
Chances It Will Be a Certified Fresh Hit: The Lord of the Rings films are all Certified Fresh at 91%, 95%, and 93% respectively. The Hobbit films less so — 64%, 74%, and 59% — but they were always at a disadvantage by adopting the tone of LOTR. The tale of Sauron and the various people he encounters in the Second Age share the scope and thematic consistency of Tolkien’s classic fantasy novel.
(Photo by Netflix)
TV Release Date: TBD
Based On: The world created by Witcher novelist Andrzej Sapkowski and Netflix’s Witcher television series.
The Fanbase: The various factions of Witcher fans who come to the series thanks to the novels, video games, Netflix series, and that song.
Everything We Know So Far: On July 27, 2020, Netflix announced its intention to produce a 6-episode limited series based on a key aspect of Witcher lore. 1200 years before Geralt of Rivia (Henry Cavill) walked the Continent, a conjunction of the spheres forced the worlds of monsters, elves, and men to become one land. And out of the tumult, the first Witcher was born. Laurence O’Fuarain stars as Fjall, a fierce warrior whose search for redemption leads him into unlikely company. Declan de Barra serves as showrunner while The Witcher’s Lauren Schmidt is also onboard as an executive producer. Production is expected to begin in July. Unfortunately, Jodie Turner-Smith, who was cast as another lead character, dropped out in April over scheduling conflicts.
It’s Most Like: Well, The Witcher, but the prominence on Elves does offer it a slight Lord of the Rings vibe as well.
Chances It Will Be a Certified Fresh Hit: The first season of The Witcher produced a Tomatometer score of 67%, but an audience of 91%, so the program will likely please fans of the Continent and its history.
(Photo by Macall B. Polay/HBO)
TV Release Date: TBD
Based On: The yarns of history or myth A Song of Ice and Fire author George R.R. Martin likes to tell while characters eat sweet meats and plot their next move in the Game of Thrones. Also based on the short stories and longer histories the author publishes while he is not finishing The Winds of Winter.
The Fanbase: Game of Thrones fans, which is a large part of HBO’s subscriber base at this point.
Everything We Know So Far: At one point, HBO president Casey Bloys said there could be as many as five prequel series after Game of Thrones completed its run in 2019. Developed with Martin, multiple premises were in an informal competition for a programming slot. All of those initial programs failed to become series, but a new round of spinoff development began in 2021.
In the interim, the first prequel to get the greenlight in a 10-episode, straight-to-series order, is called House of the Dragon. The announcement was made at the October 29, 2019 HBO Max presentation on the Warner Bros. lot in in Burbank.
#HouseOfTheDragon, a #GameofThrones prequel is coming to @HBO.
The series is co-created by @GRRMSpeaking and Ryan Condal. Miguel Sapochnik will partner with Condal as showrunner and will direct the pilot and additional episodes. Condal will be writing the series. pic.twitter.com/9ttMzElgXm
— Game of Thrones (@GameOfThrones) October 29, 2019
The series, set 300 years before the events of Game of Thrones, tells the story of House Targaryen. Emmy-winning director Miguel Sapochnik (Game of Thrones) and Ryan Condal (Colony) will partner as showrunners and will also serve as executive producers along with Martin and Vince Gerardis. Sapochnik will direct the pilot and additional episodes of the series, which will be written by Condal.
Martin responded to the news on his blog.
“House of the Dragon has been in development for several years (though the title has changed a couple of times during that process). It was actually the first concept I pitched to HBO when we started talking about a successor show, way back in the summer of 2016. If you’d like to know a bit more of what the show will be about… well, I can’t actually spill those beans, but you might want to pick up a copy of two anthologies I did with Gardner Dozois, Dangerous Women and Rogues, and then move on to Archmaester Gyldayn’s history, Fire & Blood.”
Martin released Fire & Blood, the first volume of a two-part history of the Targaryens in Westeros, in November 2018. Centuries before the events of A Song of Ice and Fire series, the Targaryens fled Valyria and landed at Dragonstone. The book begins with Aegon the Conqueror, who married his sister and created the Iron Throne. The second prequel would cover the events in that novel up through the Dance of Dragons, a bloody, great civil war between Targaryens for the Iron Throne that saw sibling slay sibling and dragon battle dragon.
Did someone say “dragon battle”? Yes, unlike the now-deceased first prequel, the second story should feature some of the most fearsome of the Targaryen dragons, including Balerion (The Black Dread), the only Westeros dragon to have lived in Valyria and whose skull is seen filling the basement of the Red Keep in Game of Thrones.
“But… let me make this perfectly clear… I am not taking on any scripts until I have finished and delivered Winds of Winter. Winter is still coming, and Winds remains my priority, as much as I’d love to write an episodes of House,” Martin wrote in his October 30, 2019 blog post, following news of the series order.
In his September post, Martin gave an update following the intense media attention to news on the second prequel: “Yes, it is based on material from one of my books. (FWIW, those who have read Fire & Blood will realize it contains enough materials for a dozen shows.) This one has a title, but no one else has revealed it, so I had better not either. (But it’s not the obvious title.)
“It has a script and a bible, and both of them are terrific, first rate, exciting. They’re the work of Ryan Condal,” he wrote. “He’s a helluva strong writer, and a huge fan of A Song of Ice and Fire, Dunk & Egg, and Westeros in general. I’ve loved working with him, and if the Seven Gods and HBO are kind, I hope to keep on working with him for years to come on this new successor show, the title of which is… Ooops. Almost slipped. Can’t say yet. I can say that there will be dragons. Everyone else has said that, so why not me?”
Across late 2020 and early 2021, a cast formed including Rhys Ifans, Steve Toussaint, Eve Best, Sonoya Mizuno, Paddy Considine, Olivia Cooke, Matt Smith, Emma D’Arcy and Fabien Frankel. Considine plays King Viserys Targaryen, a kindly ruler of the Seven Kingdoms whose unusual plan for succession leads to the Dance of Dragons. The other castmembers either play his relatives or other ambitious people within the realm looking to use the instability for their own gain.
Read more: Everything We Know About HBO’s Game of Thrones (Dead) Prequel
In January of 2021, word broke that HBO is also developing as series based on Martin’s “Dunk and Egg” novellas. Currently known as Tales of Dunk and Egg, the proposed program is set 90 years prior to Game of Thrones and will center on Ser Duncan the Tall, aka Dunk, and his squire, Egg, as they journey around Westeros. It is unclear how important Egg’s destiny as King Aegon V Targaryen will be to the program, though.
Beyond House of the Dragon and Dunk and Egg, four other projects are in the works at HBO. These include an animated series of which little is known, a program Bruno Heller is developing about House of the Dragon supporting character Lord Corlys Velaryon – although it is unclear if it is a direct spinoff of that series – a show focusing on Princess Nymeria and the founding of Dorne 1,000 years before Games of Thrones, and another set in the King’s Landing slum of Flea Bottom.
They’re Most Like: Game of Thrones.
Chances They Will Be Certified Fresh Hits: Unless they’re colossal train wrecks, the prequel series will be hits. Until its eighth and final season, GoT never dipped below 90% Fresh on the Tomatometer. And with a new production staff coming in, the senioritis that plagued GoT‘s final year shouldn’t be a factor.
(Photo by DAW Books)
TV Release Date: TBD
Based On: Patrick Rothfuss’s as-yet incomplete trilogy – which began with The Name of the Wind and continued in The Wise Man’s Fear – and other works Rothfuss set in the same reality. The main series tells the tale of a famed scribe and biographer listening to the stories of an adventurer, arcanist, and musician named Kvothe, who appears to have settled into a retirement as an innkeeper.
The Fanbase: Fantasy lovers and musicians like Hamilton’s Lin-Manuel Miranda.
Everything We Know So Far: Lionsgate has been developing a series, film, and video game series based on Rothfuss’s novels since 2015. In November of 2016, Miranda signed on as a “creative producer” for the film and TV aspects of the project. The films – the first of which is to be directed by Spider-Man’s Sam Raimi – will concern Kvothe’s chronicle, while the TV series will explore other aspects of Rothfuss’s world. Both the author and Miranda are said to be developing characters for the series, which was in development at Showtime. In February of 2019, Showtime president Gary Levine told reporters showrunner John Rogers (Leverage) and “a group of writers” were working on the series with input from Manuel, but offered no further details. The premise reportedly revolved around two traveling musicians a generation prior to the events of the main novels and eventual film series. By that September, Showtime passed on the series, but left Lionsgate’s television division free to shop it around to other outlets. Reportedly, a number of scripts have already been written and at least one set-to-launch streaming service may be in the process of reading them. In November of 2020, Miranda said working on His Dark Materials gave him a new perspective on the material and that it just needs the right director and script to make the whole thing work.
It’s Most Like: Other fantasy epics with a wonderful Interview with the Vampire–esque narrative conceit.
Chances It Will Be a Certified Fresh Hit: It all depends on when it happens. Since the movie appears to be further along in development, it remains to be seen how much crossover will exist between it and the series. Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. attempted cohesion with the film franchises for the first couple of years, but eventually needed narrative distance. And without that strong tie to the films, it is unclear if fans will take to new characters without Kvothe as a unifying force. Also, this is assuming the film itself is a Certified Fresh hit.
(Photo by Emma McIntyre/Getty Images; Simon & Schuster, Inc.)
Based On: The Earthsea novels and stories of Ursula K. Le Guin. Set on a planet of small archipelagos, various cultures, and a real magic tradition, the first novel centers around Ged, a young mage who comes of age while trying to escape a demonic shadow he conjured into being. Sadly, Le Guin passed away before anyone could make an Earthsea adaptation that reflected her core concept for the world: a fantasy setting composed mainly of brown-skinned people accepting the inevitability of death.
The Fanbase: Almost every fantasy and science fiction fan on the planet.
It’s Most Like: Itself. The Earthsea series set the standard for so many that followed.
Everything We Know So Far: Optioned for films by Nightcrawler’s Jennifer Fox (pictured) shortly before Le Guin’s death in 2018, A24 and Fox revealed in September of 2019 they will develop the project as a television series.
Chances It Will Be a Certified Fresh Hit: Adaptations of Earthsea have not fared well. Studio Ghibli’s Tales from Earthsea, directed by Hayao Miyazaki’s son Goro, rests at a Rotten 43% on the Tomatometer and almost equally bad audience score of 46%. Le Guin was disappointed in its focus on combat and an externalized villain, despite praising its visual beauty. An earlier Sci-Fi Channel miniseries fares a little better with an audience score of 53%, but has no official Tomatometer score. Le Guin was not a fan, as it cast Shawn Ashmore as the brown-skinned Ged among other liberties taken with the material. Her criticisms of the adaptation are far more entertaining than the show itself. All of which means that any new adaptation has an uphill battle as it begins its development as a television series — at least the Tomatometer bar is set low.
(Photo by )
TV Release Date: TBD
Based On: The epic fantasy series by Robert Jordan and concluded by Brandon Sanderson — whose own Mistborn series is getting the film-franchise treatment — after Jordan’s death in 2007. Set in a world that is both Earth’s distant past and far future, the cycle of time is threatened by a Shadow of ultimate evil. It searches for “The Dragon Reborn,” a being of light fated to clash with the Shadow. Various enemies and allies of both sides appear as the main characters learn more about their fate and even cross into parallel worlds. Each book in the latter half of the series — books eight through 14 — hit No. 1 on The New York Times Best Seller list.
The Fanbase: Probably every fantasy fan you know.
Everything We Know So Far: Amazon and Sony Pictures Television announced in February 2018 that they are developing the series in concert, and at a London press event on Oct. 2, 2018, they announced that they ordered the one-hour action-fantasy to series, with Rafe Judkins (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Chuck), who adapted the novels for television, serving as showrunner and executive producer. Rick Selvage and Larry Mondragon of Red Eagle Entertainment, Ted Field and Mike Weber of Radar Pictures (Beirut, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle) and Darren Lemke (Shrek Forever After) are executive producers. Consulting producer Harriet McDougal edited the Wheel of Time novels written by her late husband Jordan and is the current copyright holder. In June 2019, Rosamund Pike signed on to star in the series as Moiraine, a woman who leads a group of youngsters across the worlds in an attempt to find the Dragon Reborn. Pike will also serve as a producer on the series. That August, the streaming service announced the five fresh faces who will play those young men and women: Madeleine Madden as Egwene Al’Vere, Marcus Rutherford as Perrin Aybara, Barney Harris as Mat Cauthon, Zoë Robins as Nynaeve, and Josha Stradowski as Rand Al’Thor (pictured above). In September that year, Hawaii 5-0’s Daniel Henney joined the cast as al’Lan Mandragoran, the last scion of Malkier’s noble line. In March of 2021, Amazon released a very brief tease of Pike’s Moiraine declaring “Do not underestimate the women in this tower.”
(Photo by Tor Books)
It’s Most Like: The Lord of the Rings, which may be a problem as Amazon’s five-season LOTR series is also in the works.
Chances It Will Be a Certified Fresh Hit: It’s hard to say. Judkins boasts credits on CF seasons of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Fresh season of Chuck, but his primary credits also include a co-producer role on the 27%-scoring first season of Hemlock Grove; that said, the disastrous Netflix supernatural series starred Bill Skarsgård, who’s gone on to roles like Pennywise in CF horror film It and the mysterious prisoner in another supernatural series, Hulu’s CF hit Castle Rock. The key issue now is whether or not Amazon will have money to develop another property with an epic scope once LOTR begins production.
(Photo by DC Comics)
TV Release Date: TBD
Based On: The DC/Vertigo comic book series by writer Neil Gaiman and a variety of artists, including Sam Keith, Mike Dringenberg, Michael Zulli, and Jill Thompson, in which Dream of the Endless – the manifestation of dreams across the cosmos – faces a dilemma when his self-imposed obligations make it impossible for him to continue to function as he has for millennia. Of course, before he can deal with that internal conflict, he must put his realm, the Dreaming, back in order after being held prisoner on Earth for 75 years.
The Fanbase: Goths, Tori Amos fans, and people who started reading books for fun at a really early age.
Everything We Know So Far: After nearly 30 years of attempts to adapt The Sandman into a feature film, Warner Bros. Television and Netflix struck a deal for a direct-to-series adaptation — which is, really, The Sandman’s best destiny outside of the comics. Gaiman will executive produce alongside Krypton’s David S. Goyer — the pair was also attached as executive producers on the last feature film attempt — while Wonder Woman screenwriter Allan Heinberg will co-write the pilot alongside Gaiman and serve as showrunner.
The rumors are true. The tangled story of Morpheus, King of Dreams is becoming a Netflix series! Warner Brothers and executive producer Allan Heinberg (Wonder Woman screenwriter) have signed on to bring the dream of Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman into reality. pic.twitter.com/cOMjPL5cqp
— Netflix Geeked (@NetflixGeeked) July 1, 2019
Following the announcement, Gaiman took to Twitter to clear up some confusion about his role in the series. Among the nuggets he offered: the series will be set in the present day — outside of flashbacks to certain incidents in history, we’re presuming — and not the late 1980s/1990s setting of the original comic book series. He will be involved “much more than American Gods” but “less than Good Omens.” He also hopes “we can make something on television that feels as personal and true as the best of the Sandman comics did.” The first season will be 11 episodes and comprise the story told in the comic’s first seven issues (now known collectively as Preludes & Nocturnes) and “a little bit more.” We’re hoping a single-issue tale like “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” “Calliope” or “A Dream of a Thousand Cats” becomes that “little bit more.” Although, we’ll be stunned if “The Sound of Her Wings” is held back until season 2. The cast includes Tom Sturridge as Morpheus, Gwendoline Christie as Lucifer, Vivienne Acheampong as Lucienne, Sanjeev Bhaskar and Asim Chaudhry as Cain and Abel; and Boyd Holbrook as the Corinthian.
It’s Most Like: Good Omens, which is no surprise as Gaiman began writing the series around the time he and Terry Pratchett were writing the novel upon which the recent Amazon series was based. Both span thousands of years of history and see characters learning they are more than their titles. Then there’s also the whimsy to consider, and another role in which Michael Sheen could dress all in white. Although, the Corinthian is a far less agreeable chap than Aziraphale.
Chances It Will Be a Certified Fresh Hit: Good Omens was a Certified Fresh hit at 82% on the Tomatometer. Readers seemed to like it a bit more, as it has a 92% audience score. American Gods, also based on Gaiman’s work, came out of its second season with 75% on the Tomatometer and an 82% audience score. Considering Gaiman intends to be more involved in The Sandman than he was during American Gods’ reportedly troubled second season, we predict a high Tomatometer score when the Sandman series eventually debuts. Though the comic was a magnet for Gothy types, it really appeals to just about everyone who gives it a shot. Presumably, its best qualities will make it irresistible to Netflix subscribers and reviewers alike.
(Photo by BBC/courtesy Everett Collection)
TV Release Date: TBD
Based On: Mervyn Peake’s mid-20th century novel trilogy — Titus Groan, Gormenghast, and Titus Alone — and the incomplete follow-ups centering on Titus Goran, reluctant heir to the immense Castle Gormenghast and the surrounding domain. But even as Titus grows up knowing he must eventually become a ruler, an ambitious kitchen boy plots his downfall.
The Fanbase: Writerly types like Neil Gaiman.
Everything We Know So Far: Gormenghast fan Gaiman, Doctor Who scribe Toby Whithouse, and Star Trek: Discovery’s Akiva Goldsman set up a new version of Gormenghast for FremantleMedia North America in 2018 without a streaming platform or broadcaster attached, but in August 2019 the project landed at Showtime. While the 2000 BBC adaptation of Gormenghast, starring Jonathan Rhys Meyers (pictured above), focused on the first two novels, the new series will cover all three of Peakes completed novels and the two further stories he outlined prior to his death in 1957.
It’s Most Like: Historical fiction with a few fantasy trappings.
Chances It Will Be a Certified Fresh Hit: Unlike most of the other projects in development, Gormenghast is notable for a distinct lack of magic despite its fantasy setting. Like the grounded first season of Game of Thrones, the more realistic world will set it apart from Middle-earth and the Hyborian Age.
(Photo by Walt Disney/courtesy Everett Collection)
TV Release Date: TBD
Based On: The seven Narnia novels by author C.S. Lewis, in which a group of WWII-era British school children gain access to a parallel realm known as Narnia. There, the Great Lion Aslan – a manifestation of Jesus Christ – teaches the children life lessons while giving them dominion over the land. The series eventually pivots from the Pevensie children to their cousin Eustace Scrubb, who goes from being a right git to a proper hero of Narnia. Santa Claus also makes a cameo appearance.
The Fanbase: Fans of high fantasy with overt Christian allegories.
Everything We Know So Far: On October 3, 2018, Netflix announced it acquired the film and television rights to the Narnia book series. The plan includes both films and television series, which suggests there may be a way to include the prequel novel, The Magician’s Nephew, in the story cycle. Mark Gordon, Douglas Gresham, and Vincent Sieber will serve as executive producers for the television series and as producers for features. In June 2019, Coco co-writer Matthew Aldrich signed on to oversee the adaptation as an overall creative director for both the television series and the planned films. In early 2021, Netflix film cheif Scott Stuber mentioned Narnia is still in the works.
It’s Most Like: As Lewis and Tolkien were friends and sparring partners, similarities between Narnia and Middle-earth abound, right down to walking trees. As realized in other media, though, Narnia is not as fully formed as Tolkien’s Arda, with the world, costumes, and critters seeming more traditionally European in concept.
Chances It Will Be a Certified Fresh Hit: The Narnia film series followed a downward slope with The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe obtaining a Certified Fresh 76% on the Tomatometer, Prince Caspian following it up with a 67%, and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader striking out with a 50% score. But as the series eventually changes protagonists, the switch to Eustace always made Narnia a tougher theatrical sell. He may fare better on television.
(Photo by Universal Pictures)
TV Release Date: TBD
Based On: The stories of Robert E. Howard featuring Conan the Cimmerian who roamed a fictional “Hyborian Age” said to occur after the destruction of Atlantis, but before the rise of “modern” civilization. An accomplished warrior in his teens, Conan became a pirate, thief and mercenary before claiming the throne of Aquilonia in his forties by strangling the man who was sitting in it at the time.
The Fanbase: Everyone from fantasy authors like Robert Jordan to filmmakers like Oliver Stone and former president Barack Obama, as well as fans of the Conan films like 1982 Universal Pictures release Conan the Barbarian, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger (pictured).
Everything We Know So Far: At one time, Amazon was developing a series based more directly on Howard’s stories than later authors’ work or the Marvel Comics series of the 1970s and ’80s. Colony co-creator Ryan Condal was onboard to write and produce with Game of Thrones director Miguel Sapochnik attached to direct the pilot. But years went by with no further developments and both Condal and Sapochnik moved on to House of the Dragon. In September of 2020, word broke indicating Netflix now had the property with Pathfinder Media set to produce. But as before, news on Conan is surprisingly scarce.
It’s Most Like: A Dark Age version of Thrones in which men wear fewer garments.
Chances It Will Be a Certified Fresh Hit: In light of the significant change, this one is tough to call. Netflix’s experience with fantasy (The Witcher, Cursed) is encouraging, but without any creatives attached to the project, the program is even more of a wildcard than it was during the Amazon years.
(Photo by Photos by Jonathan Hession -- Sam Strike in 'Nightflyers' Syfy/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images; Jasper Paakkonen in 'Vikings' History)
TV Release Date: TBD
Based On: Stephen King’s flagship fantasy series The Dark Tower. Across eight novels, a number of short stories and numerous connections to his other writings, the series details the journey of gunslinger Roland and his band of friends as they attempt to reach the Dark Tower — anchor point of the multiverse — before the Man in Black can destroy it. Once there, Roland discovers he’s played out this cycle before, clearing the way for film and television adaptations to be sequels of the original novel series.
The Fanbase: King’s wide audience and fantasy lovers who manage to get past the rough first chapters of The Gunslinger, the cycle’s first novel.
Everything We Know So Far: Originally intended as a companion piece to 2017’s The Dark Tower film centering on the life of Roland (played by Idris Elba) in Mid-World, the series will instead start over with Nightflyers’ Sam Strike (pictured above left) as Roland and Vikings’ Jasper Pääkkönen (pictured above right) as the villainous Man in Black. Considering the film’s poor performance (17% on the Tomatometer), it is probably for the best. In early 2020, Amazon passed on the project, although executive producer Glen Mazzara said he hoped the series will find a home elsewhere. One year later, we doubt Roland will ever make it to the Dark Tower in live action.
It’s Most Like: Like a number of fantasy series from the 1970s and ’80s, it openly wears its Tolkien inspiration everywhere. In fact, King says as much in a foreword to the novel series. But it grows by leaps and bounds as King discovers a way to tie Mid-World to Derry, Maine, and his other favorite locations.
Chances It Will Be a Certified Fresh Hit: It seems The Dark Tower may be unworkable as either a film or television series. Or, at least, too expensive and unwieldly for companies already engaged in creating things like The Lord of the Rings and The Witcher. In terms of critical reception, any such series would need the full resources of a streaming service or cable outlet to be welcomed favorably.
(Photo by Macmillan Publishers/Annapurna Pictures)
TV Release Date: TBD
Based On: The first novel in author Jenn Lyons’ A Chorus of Dragons series. Young thief Kihrin discovers he may be of the royal bloodline, and he may also be at the center of a prophecy stating that he will end the empire. There are a lot of conditional statements in his life, making him sound more like the most timid Skyrim player to ever live. But the Black Brotherhood, after buying him as a slave, may provide motivation enough for him to care about his foretold destiny.
The Fanbase: Since the book only debuted in February 2019, the fanbase is still forming.
Everything We Know So Far: Annapurna Television optioned the rights shortly after The Ruin of Kings was published. Presumably, the search is underway for key creatives and a home for the program.
It’s Most Like: Game of Thrones and The Lord of the Rings with its mix of prophecies, scrappy heroes, gods, witches, zombies, and even krakens.
Chances It Will Be a Certified Fresh Hit: Even odds. A Chorus of Dragons is such a new concept that a simple logline makes it sound utterly derivative of other popular series. But with fantasy, it is all in how those well-worn creatures and tropes get used. And if reviews of the novel are to be believed, The Ruin of Kings mixes those elements in an unexpected and worthwhile way.
(Photo by Orbit)
TV Release Date: TBD
Based On: N.K. Jemisin’s novels about a world in which the single supercontinent, Stillness, is ravaged every few centuries by a dramatic climate change known as “The Fifth Season.” The most recent Fifth Season proved to be particularly bad, leading some to believe the end is at hand. The society of Stillness is broken into races, castes and species. Those divisions help and hinder the people’s efforts to weather the possible apocalypse. Set against this landscape is the tale of three women with the power to both calm and agitate seismic activity under Stillness. All three books in the series won the Hugo Award for best novel.
The Fanbase: The voting bodies of both the Hugo Awards and the Nebulas, who nominated The Fifth Season and The Obelisk Gate for best novel in their respective years.
Everything We Know So Far: The Fifth Season was optioned by TNT in August of 2017 with Sleepy Hollow’s Leigh Dana Jackson set to write the pilot. Heroes’ Tim Kring was also set to serve as an executive producer. There has been no news since, but development on even a simple (from a design perspective) high-school drama can take forever.
It’s most like… Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind with a touch of Game of Thrones.
Chances It Will Be a Certified Fresh Hit: As suggested above, it could be a strong counter-program to Amazon’s The Wheel of Time and Lord of the Rings series with a strong emphasis on female characters and ecological disaster. At the same time, TNT is not known for long-running fantasy series – unless you count the fantastic elements of The Librarians – with its last true fantasy project, The Mists of Avalon, debuting back in 2001. That miniseries falters at 44% on the Tomatometer, but it should be noted that TNT was very different entity at the time. The current leadership could offer The Broken Earth the money and support it needs to be a special voice in fantasy television.
(Photo by Nelson Doubleday)
Based On: The novellas – and later novels – of Michael Moorcock featuring Elric, a frail albino who also happens to be the 428th and final emperor of Meliboné. Though quite weak, Elric’s sword, Stormbringer, offers him renewed health and vitality, but it requires a constant supply of souls to keep it powered. At odds with traditional Meliboné society, his antics cause him troubles at court and lead to his own nephew plotting a coup against him.
Why We Want a TV Series: In its setting, it may remind some of Lord of the Rings and Conan, but Moorcock actively wrote Elric as an antithesis of the Cimmerian wanderer. Heady, weird, and expressly anti-Conan, Elric’s chances of success commercially or critically are a long shot. But then, an enterprising producer could position a series based on Moorcock’s stories as a compelling alternative to Conan.
(Photo by Wizards of the Coast)
Based On: The Dungeons & Dragons role-playing scenarios by Laura and Tracy Hickman and the later tie-in novels by Tracy Hickman and Margaret Weis. In the world of Krynn, dragons dominate and dragonlances are the only weapons mortals not adept in magic can use to kill them. In the first trio of novels, the Heroes of the Lance fight to restore order to the realm. Since then, nearly 200 Dragonlance novels have been published.
Why We Want a TV Series: While seemingly obscure, a properly developed Dragonlance series would have the potential to fill the void left by Game of Thrones when it ends in 2019. The upcoming Dungeons & Dragons film is said to be based on Dragons of Autumn Twilight, the first Dragonlance novel, but a full series devoted to the game mechanics of D&D and the world of Krynn could be something revolutionary. And as Geek & Sundry’s Critical Role proves every Thursday, there is an audience for stories steeped in the role-playing tradition.
Got another fantasy novel or series you think a smart network or streaming service should adapt? Let us know in the comments.
A man (Bruce Davison) relates the dark fate of those who wish on the monkey’s paw in this clip from Creepshow episode “Night of the Paw.”
About the Episode: A mortician saves the life of a woman who shows up at his door one night, but unbeknownst to her, the man had wished for a murderer to come put him out of his misery… maybe she wasn’t so fortunate after all. The episode also stars Hannah Barefoot, Susannah Devereux, Grace Toso, and Ryan Clay Gwaltney. It was written by John Esposito and directed by John Harrison.
About the Series: The anthology series, based on the iconic 1982 film written by Stephen King and directed by George A. Romero, features original fun and scary stories, helmed by a different director. Greg Nicotero (The Walking Dead) executive produces.
Creepshow episode “Night of the Paw” airs on Thursday, October 24 at 9/6P on Shudder TV live stream and is available now on demand.
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In episode 3 of The Walking Dead season 10, The Whisperers have Alexandria on edge, and when Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) and Aaron (Ross Marquand) have a private moment, the anxiety spills over. “If you don’t protect what belongs to you, then sooner or later, it belongs to someone else,” Negan instructs Aaron, who takes offense at the schooling from a murderer. Is Negan suggesting Eric’s death was Aaron’s fault? He gets in Negan’s face to tell him exactly what he thinks of that “lesson,” but Negan’s backup arrives before the tiff can come to blows.
About the Episode: The threat of the Whisperers return leads to paranoia sweeping over Alexandria. In the meantime, Carol (Melissa McBride) battles with the need for revenge.
About the Series: Based on the comic book series written by Robert Kirkman and published by Image Comics, The Walking Dead tells the story of the months and years after a zombie apocalypse and follows a group of survivors who travel in search of a safe and secure home. The series also stars Norman Reedus and Danai Gurira.
The Walking Dead episode “Ghosts” airs on Sunday, October 20 at 10/9C on AMC.
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(Photo by Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/FilmMagic)
There’s no area The Walking Dead shines better in than character backstories, and “We Are the End of the World” didn’t break that streak as it shed new light (or more accurately, darkness) on the origins of the relationship between the Whisperers leaders Alpha (Samantha Morton) and Beta (Ryan Hurst).
Hurst, the Sons of Anarchy, Outsiders, and Bates Motel alum who has established the TV version of Beta as a calm but terrifying second-in-command to Alpha, talked to Rotten Tomatoes about creating Beta’s backstory with showrunner Angela Kang, how Beta is very much not in the dark about Alpha’s contradictions, why he thinks Beta would never betray Alpha no matter what she does, and how there’s still more backstory to come this season.
Oh, and he also tells us about how he and SOA pal and co-star Charlie Hunnam helped fans at a comic book convention in Detroit get down and spiritual with their bad selves.
It’s one of those interesting things, you know, this happens to me quite a bit…I’ve been meditating for 20 years. And sometimes these ideas just drop into my head while I’m in the middle of meditating. And while I was meditating, this entire sort of backstory dropped into my head. This was before I’d shot a single frame of film for season 9. I contacted Angela, and I said, “Let me come in and pitch you this idea that I have for the backstory about Beta and Alpha.” And I went in there and I pitched it to her and she said, “Oh my God, I love it.” And they put it together, and it was a really collaborative process. They distilled it and made it really, really poignant. There’s still some stuff that we were left to explore about Beta, especially his sort of history before he meets Alpha. We’ve been dropping little Easter eggs — there may or may not have been a little Easter egg in Fear the Walking Dead. We haven’t revealed exactly too much of who he was, but we’re going to get into that also. But yeah, I was just super happy with the way that the episode turned out, you know, and that they actually used some of my ideas, which is enormous.
Does this mean that Beta is not the pro basketball star-turned-actor that he is in the comic book?
I can neither confirm nor deny this. What I can tell you is any changes that we’ve made, if it’s possible to improve upon the comic, we did our best to improve upon the comic … the wonderful stuff that (Robert) Kirkman brought to us.
We finally know now why Beta is so loyal to Alpha and how that began, how their leadership roles were established. Is that at all shaken when he learns she didn’t kill Lydia?
Yes, I mean, I’ve sort of always referred to Beta as the secret keeper of the Whisperers. Beta is acutely aware of the hypocrisies that Alpha possesses. The fact of the matter is that she preaches to everyone, not unlike very charismatic, authoritarian cult leaders, in that they speak one thing and a lot of the time they end up doing another. She says, “Leave everything behind, the apocalypse is upon us. This is their world now, and we’re supposed to live among them.” And yet, Lydia has a name. Everybody refers to her as Lydia … blaring hypocrisy from the very get go, and you sort of very silently, patiently track these cracks in her armor, and that extends to when she names one of the sisters Gamma. These are all things that Beta begins to really sense as enormous problems on the horizon for (Alpha’s) ability to lead the Whisperers. In their flashbacks, you see how much she saved Beta from himself. Beta really takes it upon himself to save her before she sort of cripples the Whisperers forever.
(Photo by Jace Downs/AMC)
We see his reaction after she kills his friend, the zombified version of his friend, in the hospital in the flashback. And then we see Alpha mirror that after Beta discovers the shrine she’s built to Lydia and how she destroys it. Is that a recognition on her part that he’s kind of onto her, and might start calling out her contradictions more frequently?
Absolutely. And I think that that’s one of the reasons why she says over and over again, pleadingly, “They can’t know, they can’t know. You can’t tell them” that Lydia’s alive. It really sort of reveals another faction of their relationship. The most important things for me in their relationship was revealing that it wasn’t just this sort of authoritative-subordinate role. I was really happy with how the relationship came off, because I wanted it to be primal, I wanted it to be carnal, but not sexual. And that’s sort of the way it comes off, it just comes off as super strange. I think she knows that in an instant, Beta can out her, and she holds no power, in and of herself, outside of her charisma. But Beta is the one who sort of, I always sort of picture him as the Dutch boy, with his finger in the dam. He knows where the cracks are and he’s just trying … they built this army, this, for lack of a better term, corporation of Whisperers, and he does his best to keep everything together.
So this certainly is not a lack of awareness on his part or him simply deferring to her. He’s protecting their way of life, of surviving.
Absolutely. That’s absolutely correct.
Do you think there’s anything Alpha could do that would push him so far that he would turn on her?
I don’t think that he would ever turn on her. I think that he would confront her and confront her, and that’s about as far as they would go. But in the same way, he owes his life to her. He would have starved or ended up going completely crazy [in the hospital] with his friend, and Alpha really came and said, you’re not broken, you’re a strong human being and you just need to assume that role in your life. She pulled him out of that darkness, and for that I feel he feels completely and always indebted to her.
(Photo by Jace Downs/AMC)
We learn a lot in this episode, but we don’t learn everything. Beta was wearing a knit mask in the flashback, and we don’t know why exactly, except that we see Alpha have a reaction when she lifts the knit mask. Anything more about that you can share?
I can’t tell you too much. We do reveal more about who he was throughout this season, a sprinkling throughout season 10. All I can say is that I love Samantha’s performance when she pulls off the mask and she sees him; it was such a wonderful recognition and a smile of surprise and then she very knowingly kind of puts it back down because her performance says it all.
It really does. I also have to say kudos to you for your — for lack of a better phrase — eye acting, because your eyes are very expressive underneath that mask.
I tried. I tried. You know, very early on in season 9, before we started shooting, Angela had mentioned, she was like, don’t worry [about the mask], we want to show his face a lot more. And I said, no, no, no. That’s when we really got deeper into the story of … I was like, “Look, I have this idea about how and why he doesn’t show his face that’s sort of contradictory to the comic book a little bit, but it is why someone would never show their face. I’m just always of the school that the more questions you pose to the audience the better, as long as they’re not totally, completely infuriating.
I also love that, as is often the case with The Walking Dead, we get a moment of levity that just, it’s small, but it plays so huge: when Alpha starts cutting up the walker bodies, and Beta says, “Ah, you’re different.”
Yeah, originally the scene started a few different ways, and I was talking to (director) Greg Nicotero, and I was just like, “I would just love to say, “You’re different.” And he said, “Oh, I love it.” So yeah, any levity that you can squeeze into this show … especially the Whispers, who are not known for their slapstick. But I’m a huge fan of trying to infuse as much humor as you can into the show.
I have to ask you about this: at the Walker Stalker convention in Atlanta (Oct. 18-20), you’re doing a “Yogis of Anarchy” session, which is an intro to Kundalini yoga, with the fans. Have you done this before?
Yes. I’ve done it in Pittsburgh and Detroit. I’ve been practicing Kundalini for a very long time and teaching for a long time, and it’s been utterly transformative of my entire life. My friend Charlie Hunnam and I … I brought Charlie into doing Kundalini three or four years ago, and he said, “Man, we should do this at one of these cons.” We tried it, and the response was huge. And since then, every convention that I go to, I try to really early in the morning hold a yoga class, and the people seem to love it.
And how many people come to the classes? Hundreds, thousands?
Not thousands yet. That’ll be something to mark off. In Detroit, there were about 500, and in Pittsburgh, there were a little under a hundred, so it’s been a lot of people showing up, and I really try to just share what I’ve learned. It’s a spiritual technology that sort of everybody has access to, and it has the ability to transform your life to be much lighter and much happier.
And is meditation part of this as well?
Yeah, Kundalini is known as the mother of all yoga, and it’s because it’s the oldest form of yoga. It’s an energy-based yoga that, you know, in the West, we (associate) yoga to just stretching, and Kundalini utilizes poses and creeds, but also mantra, Pranayama, which is breathing, and then formal meditation as well. So you get the Cadillac of all yogas. It’s really the quickest, most powerful, energy-based technology.
As a teacher, it’s wonderful to interact with people in Los Angeles, but to teach with people who already sort of know you, and they bring their best selves to a class, it’s a wonderful opportunity, a confluence of really good, good vibes.
And when did you and Charlie do this together?
We did Detroit this year. I posted quite a few photos on my Instagram. It was absolutely wonderful. I don’t really proselytize Kundalini yoga. I don’t go, “Oh, you have to try this, you have to try this.” I just sort of say, “This is what I’m doing, if you want to try it, that’s great,” but Charlie was actually one of the only people where I’ve ever gone, “You know, I really think that you should try to do this. You should try to do this,” and for years, he was all like, “Yeah, I’ll meet you in class. I’ll come,” but then 15 minutes beforehand say, “Oh, I’m not coming.” And then I was off shooting something somewhere, and I get this text where he said, “I started going to Kundalini yoga. I’ve been going every single day, and it feels like coming home.” And it just made me cry.
The Walking Dead airs Wednesdays at 9 p.m. on AMC.
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Comic-Con International: San Diego is very much a convention about television. That evolution is hardly surprising with the similarities the format shares with comic books. Both allow their audiences to grow intimately attached to characters over a long timespan. Both reveal their stories in installments, utilizing a certain pace within episodes (or issues) and a larger construction of momentum across a season (or story arc).
And in 2019, television — particularly of the kind based on comic books —dominates the programming schedule with The CW’s superhero offerings taking over Ballroom 20 for most of Saturday and shows like The Walking Dead and Riverdale commanding Hall H-sized crowds. Additionally, HBO is setting up a Watchmen experience at the Petco Park Home Plate Gate (and at the parking lot on the corner of Sixth Avenue and Island Avenue) to promote their upcoming quasi-sequel to the landmark miniseries by Alan Moore, Dave Gibbons, and John Higgins. Trying to see all of the Comics on TV style programming may be impossible, but we imagine the most hard-core Comic-Con aficionados (and some of us contractually-obligated media types) are willing to try.
With that in mind, join us as we take a look at all the panels highlighting Comics on TV at Comic-Con. It may help you choose your priorities.
The first full day of Comic-Con gets its Comics on TV content rolling with a new episode of Teen Titans GO! The animated shorts are somewhat divisive with fans of the older Teen Titans unimpressed with GO!’s anarchic comedy and format. Nonetheless, fun can be had as members of the voice cast and the crew will be on hand to debut the new episode. Expect some of the voice actors to switch into their roles during the Q&A. It is traditional, after all.
Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (Hall H, 3:30 p.m.)
Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. survived bouncing around the schedule, a cancellation scare, and the Snap to make their way to Hall H this year. They definitely earned it as Season 6 has been its strongest year yet. Cast members Clark Gregg, Ming-Na Wen, Chloe Bennet, Elizabeth Henstridge, Iain De Caestecker, Henry Simmons, Natalia Cordova-Buckley, and Jeff Ward – and executive producers Maurissa Tancharoen, Jed Whedon, Jeff Bell, and Jeph Loeb – will be on hand to discuss alien psychoactive substances, the mystery of Sarge, and the Planet Kitson. They will also tease some events to come in Season 7.
Stumptown (Indigo Ballroom, 4:15 p.m.)
Based on the comic book series by Greg Rucka, Matthew Southworth, and Justin Greenwood, the new ABC series focuses on Dex Parios, a sharp-witted Army veteran who takes up private investigations to pay off her gambling debts. She also looks out for her brother while solving cases and avoiding trouble. Star Cobie Smulders, along with co-stars Jake Johnson, Michael Ealy, Camryn Manheim, Tantoo Cardinal, Cole Sibus, Adrian Martinez, executive producer Jason Richman, and Rucka will introduce audiences to the TV version of Dex and the Portland, Oregon criminal underworld she knows far too well for her own good.
Adapting Source Material For Film And TV (Room 6A, 4:15 p.m.)
But if you want to learn more about how TV producers adapt comics into television shows, The Walking Dead executive producer David Alpert, Deadly Class co-executive producer Maggie Bandur, former Iron Fist showrunner M. Raven Metzner, and former Luke Cage producer Akela Cooper will chat about how they walk fan-favorite comic books through the development process and on to cable channels or streaming services. It may explain why superhero costumes often disappear and why some shows look nothing like their four-color counterparts.
DuckTales (Room 6A, 11:45 a.m.)
Start your Friday at Comic-Con with DuckTales‘ executive producer Matt Youngberg, co-EP Francisco Angones, and stars Ben Schwartz, Bobby Moynihan, Kate Micucci, and Paget Brewster as they discuss the upcoming third season and show footage from a never-before-seen episode. Will it be a whole episode? You never know with the series inspired by the Donald Duck comics of Carl Barks.
Fear The Walking Dead (Hall H, 12 p.m.)
Now a traditional Hall H staple, the cast and crew of AMC’s Fear the Walking Dead will grace the stage to dodge questions about upcoming episodes. Panelists include cast members Lennie James, Alycia Debnam-Carey, Maggie Grace, Colman Domingo, Danay Garcia, Austin Amelio, Alexa Nisenson, Karen David, Jenna Elfman, and Rubén Blades. Walking Dead boss Scott M. Gimple, showrunners and executive producers Andrew Chambliss and Ian Goldberg, executive producers Robert Kirkman, Gale Anne Hurd, Dave Alpert, and Greg Nicotero will also be on hand to help the cast avoid spoilers.
DC Super Hero Girls New Episode Premiere And Q&A (Room 6DE, 12:30 p.m.)
Last year, the DC Super Hero Girls team debuted the first of a planned series of shorts. Now, with the full series off the ground and airing on Cartoon Network, the cast and crew return triumphant with a new episode to show an appreciative crowd of fans. Last year’s panel was also a lot of fun, so we expect this to be no different.
The Walking Dead (Hall H, 1 p.m.)
Gimple, Hurd, Alpert, Nicotero, and Kirkman remain on the Hall H stage for the second hour of Walking Dead content. They are joined by Walking Dead showrunner Angela Kang and cast members Norman Reedus, Danai Gurira, Melissa McBride, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Avi Nash, Cooper Andrews, Ryan Hurst, Nadia Hilker, Eleanor Matsuura, and Cailey Fleming. Expect more spoiler-evasion, but a pretty entertaining sort as this cast knows how to talk about their characters without giving anything away. McBride, in particular, is a master at this. The hour will also offer a first look at the Season 10 trailer.
The Boys (Ballroom 20, 3:30 p.m.)
Stars Karl Urban, Jack Quaid, Antony Starr, Erin Moriarty, Laz Alonso, Chace Crawford, Tomer Capon, Karen Fukuhara, Jessie T. Usher, Elisabeth Shue, and executive producers Eric Kripke and Seth Rogen come together to discuss the upcoming Amazon Prime series based on the comic book by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson. It takes place in a world where superheroes are as fallible as any pro athlete, movie star, or influencer. But when they get out of line, The Boys appear to teach them the folly of their ways.
Pennyworth Special Video Presentation and Q&A (Room 6BCF, 4:30 p.m.)
A series based around Batman’s butler may seem superfluous, but we think those going to this panel will be pleasantly surprised by this new take on Alfred Pennyworth. Stars Jack Bannon, Ben Aldridge, Paloma Faith, and executive producers Bruno Heller and Danny Cannon will be on hand to present footage from the series and answers questions about the craziest Batman prequel yet.
Announcing The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers Animated Series (Room 6BCF, 7 p.m.)
The underground comix classic is finally coming to TV! Showrunners Alan Freedland and Alan Cohen, producers Blake Anderson and Adam Devine, and writers Jeremy Lehrer and Daniel Lehrer will discuss their approach to Gilbert Shelton’s trio of counterculture stoners.
Preacher (Hall H, 7 p.m.)
Preacher is reaching its endgame. Executive producer Seth Rogen and members of the cast will take to the Hall H stage to celebrate the program’s fourth and final season. We expect they will also have some footage from the Season 4 premiere if not the entire episode itself. They will also reminisce about the high-jinks that Jesse (Dominic Cooper), Tulip (Ruth Negga), and Cassidy (Joseph Gilgun) got up to while searching for the Almighty.
Batwoman Pilot Screening And Q&A (Ballroom 20, 10:30 a.m.)
If you missed the preview night premiere of Batwoman, you will have a second chance to catch the first episode during the first Ballroom 20 presentation on Friday, July 20th. Ruby Rose stars as the out and proud Kate Kane, cousin of a long-absent Bruce Wayne who learns the truth about his nighttime activities and takes the mantle of the Bat for herself. The cast and producers will also be on stage answering questions from soon-to-be fans of the show.
Snowpiercer On TBS: Panel and Exclusive First Look (Indigo Ballroom, 3 p.m.)
Based on the French comic by Jacques Lob and Jean-Marc Rochette, Snowpiercer takes viewers to a world where the remnants of humanity board a perpetually moving train. But all of the species’ emotional baggage is along for the ride. Stars Jennifer Connelly, Daveed Diggs, Alison Wright, Mickey Sumner, Lena Hall, Steven Ogg, and executive producer/showrunner Graeme Manson will offer an exclusive peek at the show and answer questions about its long route to the screen.
Arrow Special Video Presentation And Q&A (3:30 p.m.)
It is hard to believe that this will be the final Arrow panel at Comic-Con. And yet, eight years, two attempts at Olicity, and one Ricardo Diaz later, this is the end. Join the cast and crew as they recall fond times and tease what lies ahead for Oliver Queen (Stephen Amell) as the 10-episode final season brings him inexorably to his final fate. We expect this to be the key panel during The CW’s takeover of Ballroom 20. We even think a trailer for the upcoming “Crisis on Infinite Earths” crossover will debut toward the end of it.
Supergirl, Black Lightning, and The Flash Special Video Presentations and Q&A (Ballroom 20, 4:15-6:30 p.m.)
While we singled out Arrow because it is their final Comic-Con appearance, Supergirl, Black Lightning, and The Flash will all make their usual Saturday appearances, bringing the customary teases of their new seasons and answer fan questions about the oddest parts of the previous year. Some of those questions will no doubt concern “Crisis,” but we expect each group will have something to share bout the crossover — even the Black Lighting team, who stay out of the crossovers. As always, a large number of each cast will be in attendance. If you love these shows and want to see the Marvel Studios presentation, make your choice early and camp out in the appropriate hall.
Syfy and IDW Entertainment: Wynonna Earp (Indigo Ballroom, 5 p.m.)
It’s been a crazy year for Earpers. At Comic-Con 2018, the cast and crew announced they would be back for a fourth season. But just as production was supposed to start, it smacked up against a long delay and obscure studio politics. But the show is coming back, and stars Melanie Scrofano, Katherine Barrell, Chantel Riley, Greg Lawson, and Michael Eklund – along with executive producer Emily Andras and Wynonna creator Beau Smith – return to Comic-Con once more to tease the definitely soon-to-be-in-production fourth season. Of course, if you’ve ever been to a Wynonna Earp panel, you know they tend feature a lot of fans expressing their love for the show. It will get loud.
DC Universe Series Sneak Previews And Q&A (Indigo Ballroom, 7 p.m.)
DC Universe is gearing up for its second year and it’s bringing previews of the upcoming Harley Quinn animated series, the second season of Titans, and more to its two-hour Comic-Con presentation. Talent and producers of the various series will appear and there will probably be a few surprises. We’re hoping we’ll get confirmation about Doom Patrol’s second season and even a last-second reprieve for Swamp Thing, which was cancelled before its second episode debuted, but continued to air the entirety of the first season and turned out to be our favorite comic book show of the early summer.
(Photo by Marc Hom/The CW)
Riverdale Special Video Presentation and Q&A
The cast and crew of Riverdale close out Comic-Con’s Comics on TV presence with their yearly Hall H appearance. Expect fans to swoon over stars KJ Apa and Cole Sprouse. Also expect executive producer Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa to offer a bit of info which seems important, but ends up quite tangential to the Season 4 mystery. Will Jughead (Sprouse) be dead by spring break? Will Hiram Lodge (Mark Consuelos) exact his revenge on Veronica (Camilla Mendes)? The questions and more will be discussed even if they are not answered.
(Photo by CD Projekt Red)
Every year in late spring, gamers and press from around the globe converge on the Los Angeles Convention Center to get a sneak peek of the latest and greatest video games being revealed at the Electronic Entertainment Expo.
For E3 2019 this week, heavy hitters Microsoft, Nintendo, and Ubisoft broke out the big guns for their latest projects, but a number of movie- and TV-based games have emerged as some of the week’s most promising prospects. Game developers no doubt hope to score the same sort of critical acclaim as last year’s Marvel’s Spider-Man.
Here are 10 of those pop culture–centric projects — and two honorable mentions — that already have our thumbs twitching in anticipation!
Developer: BonusXP
Publisher: En Masse Entertainment
Platforms: PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, PC
Release Date: July 4
Following their ravenous consumption of new Stranger Things episodes this summer, fans can dive deeper into the sci-fi horror series’ third season in a new game releasing day and date with the show. Featuring a charmingly retro visual style, complete with a pixel-perfect Sheriff Hopper, as well as solo and co-op play, Stranger Things 3: The Video Game invites fans to solve puzzles, battle supernatural baddies, and uncover Hawkins’ — and the Upside Down’s — darkest secrets.
Developer: Koei Tecmo Games, Team NINJA
Publisher: Nintendo
Platforms: Nintendo Switch
Release Date: July 19
Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order easily earns its title, as it allows players to assemble teams of iconic characters from all corners of the Marvel Universe. Playing solo — or as part of a four-player super-team — fans can choose from nearly 40 characters, from the Avengers and Fantastic Four to the X-Men and Guardians of the Galaxy. Dynamic action-RPG gameplay, a gorgeous visual presentation, and an original Thanos-thwarting tale round out this fan-pleasing package.
Developer: Bloober Team
Publisher: Lionsgate Games
Platforms: Xbox One, PC
Release Date: August 30
The future of the Blair Witch franchise might be in limbo, but the cult-favorite film series’ faithful followers can return to the Black Hills Forest this summer. A story-driven, psychological horror entry from the team behind the nerve-fraying Layers of Fear games, Blair Witch weaves a fresh, frightening tale, complete with shaky camcorder footage, atmospheric environments, and the sort of imagery that will take up permanent residence in your nightmares.
Developer: Respawn Entertainment
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Platforms: PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC
Release Date: November 15
Gaming’s latest take on the galaxy far, far away puts players in the role of Cal Kestis, a Padawan on the run from the Empire’s Jedi-hunting Inquisitors. Set shortly after the events of Episode III, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order is a single-player, story-driven action-adventure featuring familiar faces from both the light and dark sides, dynamic lightsaber combat, Stormtrooper-crushing Force powers, and an adorable companion droid that could top BB-8 on the cuteness scale.
Developer: Funsolve
Publisher: Outright Games
Platforms: PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, PC
Release Date: November 15
Landing ahead of the holiday season’s highly-anticipated Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle sequel comes a new game based on the family-friendly franchise. Embracing the action, humor, and exotic environments of the films, the game features four-player co-op (both online and local) and a delightfully stylized take on the films’ colorful cast of characters.
Developer: Survios
Publisher: Survios
Platforms: Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, PlayStation VR
Release Date: Fall 2019
Given virtual reality’s immersion-ratcheting nature, it’s not surprising so many game developers have leveraged the tech to scare the pants off players. The Walking Dead Onslaught aims to up the ante in this regard, putting brave fans face-to-rotting-face with the franchise’s brain-craving foes. Sporting visceral combat — supported by a “progressive dismemberment system” — and a new story, the game also puts players in the boots of their favorite survivors from the AMC series.
Developer: BonusXP
Publisher: En Masse Entertainment
Platforms: PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, PC
Release Date: 2019
The Dark Crystal renaissance continues with a new game based on the cult-favorite film’s 10-episode prequel series set to hit Netflix this summer, The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance. Dubbed Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance Tactics, the title combines strategy-focused combat with deep role-playing game elements, all brought to life by a charming visual presentation that should please fans of the original Jim Henson– and Frank Oz–directed film.
Developer: CD Projekt Red
Publisher: CD Projekt
Platforms: PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC
Release Date: April 16, 2020
Cyberpunk 2077 doesn’t find its genesis in film and TV, but the title scores whoa! points for hiring thespian Keanu Reeves to anchor the game. Reeves plays rocker Johnny Silverhand, a high-profile NPC who personifies the malware infecting the biochip in the player’s character. The Matrix trilogy star, just off Certified Fresh hit John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum, is soon to appear in 2020 film Bill & Ted Face the Music. Plus, CD Projekt Red is the company behind the hugely popular Witcher video game series, which is being turned into a Netflix show starring Henry Cavill (Justice League).
Read Also: “Upcoming Video Game Movies and TV Adaptations”
Developer: Crystal Dynamics, Eidos Montreal
Publisher: Square Enix
Platforms: PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC
Release Date: May 15, 2020
Avengers Endgame has come and gone, but Marvel fans will get to reassemble Earth’s Mightiest Heroes in this ambitious action-adventure from the folks behind the rebooted Tomb Raider franchise. Whether saving the day solo or teaming up online with a co-op crew of four, players will unleash the skills and powers of Captain America, Black Widow, Iron Man, and the Hulk in a brand new, cinematic story that further expands on Marvel’s rich universe.
Developer: TT Games
Publisher: Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment
Platforms: PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, PC
Release Date: 2020
The enormously popular and prolific LEGO video game series kicked off with 2005’s LEGO Star Wars: The Video Game. That legacy now comes full-circle with the sprawling Skywalker Saga, a collection of nine brick-based games from a galaxy far, far away. On top of revisiting previously released entries based on Episodes 1-7, the Death Star–sized compilation — which will allow fans to begin the story at any point — brings The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker to block-y life for the first time.
Developer: Bithell Games
Publisher: Lionsgate Games, Good Shepherd Entertainment
Platforms: PC, (conoles TBA)
Release Date: TBA
If you were expecting a game based on the blockbuster John Wick franchise to be a brainless, button-mashing shooter, you’d be wrong. Dead wrong. A brilliant blend of gun-fu action and strategy, John Wick Hex will have players plan every trigger-pull behind each precision shot, just as the Baba Yaga would. Toss in a stylized visual presentation and universe-expanding story and this smart shooter is right on target. Players are the titular assassin, played by Keanu Reeves in the film franchise (no word on his participation here).
Developer: FromSoftware
Publisher: Bandai Namco Entertainment
Platforms: PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC
Release Date: TBA
Another title not based on an existing film or TV property, this dark fantasy entry deserves a mention for George R.R. Martin’s involvement. A brand-new universe created by Game of Thrones mastermind Martin and From Software’s Hidetaka Miyazaki (Dark Souls, Bloodborne, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice) Elden Ring has the potential to be a pretty big deal. At the very least, it gives Martin’ fans — patiently waiting for his next book and/or suffering withdrawals from HBO’s GoT conclusion — something new to obsess over.
In 2019, Rotten Tomatoes turns 21, and to mark the occasion we’re celebrating with a series of features that look back at the brightest moments on screen of the past two decades – and one year – and the things that have us excited for the future.
The mortality rate for television characters has increased dramatically in the last two decades. Really, since cable shows like Game of Thrones — with its Stark family curse — chucked out the rule book governing the survival of beloved characters, no one is safe.
Spoiler alert! This article contains plot details for major character deaths in Game of Thrones, The Walking Dead, and 19 other TV shows.
The best surprise deaths can make viewers mourn for fictional characters. When it’s just a publicity stunt or a blatant contract termination, it doesn’t hurt quite as bad. Real-life losses like John Ritter (8 Simple Rules), Phil Hartman (NewsRadio), and Bill Paxton (Training Day), are a different sort of heartrending tragedy.
Rotten Tomatoes rounded up 21 of the most shocking and heartbreaking TV deaths of the last 21 years, which you can read below. Fictional characters only.
Want to argue for a more heartbreaking death? Tell us in the comments below.
(Photo by The CW)
This most certainly was NOT in the comics! Laurel returned so that softened the blow a little bit, but Cassidy’s goodbye episode of Arrow was brutal. Sent to the hospital after fighting Damien Darhk (Neal McDonough), the doctors made us think she was going to be OK before flatlining her.
Carol (Melissa McBride) had a crushing decision to make in season 4 episode “The Grove.” After Lizzie killed her own sister and indicated that she planned to kill more — and saw nothing wrong with that — and knowing that there is no way to manage a person having a dangerous psychotic break when you’re on the run with an infant during a zombie apocalypse, Carol made the call to shoot the girl. It was a shocking turn of events in the series and even became a meme (“look at the flowers”).
Lane takes his own life after Don discovers he’s embezzled money to cover debts and insists that the SCDP partner resign. The series plumbed the depths of Lane’s despair over his perceived failure, and yet his extreme response was still somehow thoroughly unexpected for the buttoned-up Brit.
(Photo by Fox)
24 was a game-changing show for executing its real-time format an hour at a time for 24 hours, and showing the toll it takes on Jack (Kiefer Sutherland) — beginning with the loss of his wife Teri.
(Photo by HBO)
When a family member cooperates with the FBI, there’s really only one thing for a Soprano to do about it. That didn’t make it any easier to say goodbye to Adriana when Silvio (Steven Van Zandt) drove her out to the woods and chased her through the forest.
(Photo by CMT)
After an automobile accident, country superstar Rayna James passed away in the hospital. It’s still sad to see an exit so permanent, but Britton’s heartfelt thank you note to all the fans and her colleagues jerked even more tears.
(Photo by Showtime)
Why didn’t Dexter (Michael C. Hall) kill Trinity (John Lithgow) sooner? Once Trinity was onto Dexter, he knew how to hurt him. By the time Dexter finished him off, it was too late. Dexter came home to find his wife, Rita murdered in the bathtub. This was the ultimate reminder that killing serial killers doesn’t make anything right. The victims they took away are still gone.
(Photo by CBS)
When it came time for Charles to depart the series on which he’d starred for five seasons, his character, Will, didn’t just move to another city. He was shot to death by his own client in the courtroom in a legitimately shocking episode made all the more impactful by the fact that news of Charles’ imminent exit did not leak beforehand.
(Photo by ABC)
It’s hard to single out one death from Lost since the show was so good at making us attached to every character. In the end, it had to be Charlie sacrificing himself to warn Desmond it was NOT PENNY’S BOAT radioing the Oceanic survivors.
(Photo by HBO)
Jordan was only 15 when he played a teenage drug dealer on HBO’s landmark series The Wire, making the moment when druglord Stringer Bell (Idris Elba) orders his murder all the more tragic.
(Photo by HBO)
The Mother of Dragons and Breaker of Chains went power mad in the final moments of the series as she ascended to became ruler of Westeros. Ultimately, however, she wasn’t even able to sit on the Iron Throne she’d dreamed about as a kid; she was betrayed by her lover-nephew, Jon Snow/Aegon Targaryen (Kit Harington), who professed his loyalty, then kissed her while stabbing her in the heart mere feet from her father’s throne.
(Photo by ITV)
Crawley estate heir Matthew was so happy to be a new father that he took his eyes off the road to appreciate nature, causing the fatal accident that shocked viewers. Fans later found out that Stevens wanted off the show to explore other opportunities.
(Photo by Fox)
Callies could have made our list as Lori Grimes in The Walking Dead for her death during pregnancy, but on Prison Break her head was in a box! Fans demanded her return, so she came back and even showed up in the Fox reboot for a fifth season. At the time during season 3, her demise sure felt permanent.
(Photo by The WB)
Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar) herself came back to life twice, but her mother Joyce did not have magic to resurrect her. For all the supernatural demons and monsters on Buffy, the Vampire Slayer, Buffy spent one very real hour dealing with a loved one’s death.
(Photo by ABC)
Denny’s death was a real gut punch, because throughout the entire second season of the long-running medical drama, it looked like Izzie (Katherine Heigl) had done everything to save her patient-boyfriend, including violating protocol to get him a heart transplant. The transplant itself took, but Denny still died of a blood clot and stroke. The silver lining is this role made Morgan a star.
While earlier deaths in the HBO hit fantasy series tipped fans off that anyone could go at any time, the episode nicknamed “The Red Wedding” (season 3, episode 9 “The Rains of Castamere”) took Game of Thrones death pools to another level. Half of the surviving Stark family died in the massacre carried out by Lord Walder Frey and his murderous brood: family matriarch Catelyn, King in the North Robb, his wife Talisa, and their unborn child. And while Roose Bolton was thrusting a dagger into Robb, his men outside killed Robb’s direwolf, Grey Wind, further stunning an audience that was perhaps hoping the animal might avenge its faithful human companion.
On another show where anyone could go at any time, The Walking Dead really psyched people out over the death of main character Glenn. First they made everyone think he died in a walker horde, but then he was somehow safe under a dumpster. Later, Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) beat him beyond recognition as, with his last words, he called out to wife Maggie (Lauren Cohan).
After Jack escaped the Pearson family’s burning house — saving everyone and the dog — fans all breathed a collective sigh of relief. But he wasn’t safe yet. Viewers were gobsmacked when This Is Us delivered the cruelest twist, killing Jack with a massive heart attack related to smoke inhalation. Because of the NBC series’ unique format, however, this is one character that fans get to spend time with even after he’s dead.
(Photo by Gene Page/AMC)
Sunday’s episode of The Walking Dead, “Who Are You Now?,” was the first without Andy Lincoln’s name in the opening credits, but Rick Grimes’ presence still looms large with his family and friends, six years after (they think) he died. Michonne is running the show in Alexandria, the baby Daryl nicknamed “Lil’ Asskicker” is growing up to be just that, Carol has become the frighteningly vengeful queen of The Kingdom, and Eugene Porter, spurred on by the last conversation he had with Rick, has become a brave, walker-whacking survivor.
Porter portrayer Josh McDermitt talked to Rotten Tomatoes about Eugene’s new ‘tude, his mullet-less new look, what the big time jump is allowing the show to do with the storyline, and how Eugene is going to overcome his fear to figure out why walkers seem to have developed the ability to talk.
The actor also previews the rest of the season, including the return of his friend and former co-star, Michael Cudlitz, as the director of next week’s episode.
Kimberly Potts for Rotten Tomatoes: Season 9 started with a year-and-a-half time jump, and then this very surprising six-year time jump happened. What did you think when you found out that’s how the storyline was going to move forward after Rick’s “death”?
Josh McDermitt: I loved it, because we’ve told the story many different ways. The war didn’t take place over years, even though it took place over two seasons within our show, but in The Walking Dead universe, it took place over a couple of weeks, maybe — it was a very short period of time. So to do a big time jump like that was exciting. Think about who you were a year ago, two years ago, even 10 years ago. We were different people, so it allows us to change things, and we definitely see in this episode that some things have happened in that six-year time period. We’re still affected by the loss of Rick, but these other things are impacting our lives as well. And so it’s fun to unpack those things and to figure out what’s making these people tick at this point in their lives.
Speaking of changes, Eugene has this spiffy new haircut, and more importantly, this badass attitude now. What’s been most fun about playing that evolution of Eugene?
McDermitt: It’s really cool, because I’ve been sitting on the sidelines in a way, watching everyone else kill walkers, getting their hands dirty, while I’m the corner going, “Protect me, protect me.” I know the technical things you have to do to stab a walker in the head. I know these things, but I just haven’t been able to do it myself. So the most exciting thing was to get a little more physical on the show. And it’s cool to see the evolution of this guy. He’s more confident than he’s ever been in his role as a survivor. He’s using a knife — that’s a very close-quarters weapon, and he’s not afraid of the zombies when we first see him, this new iteration of him. He’s able to go up and just handle business. He takes on three walkers at one time. If it was one walker, that’s not a lot. But as I was talking to Eddie Guzelian, who wrote the episode, and Larry Teng, who directed it, we decided that we need to show that. We needed to go from basically seeing Eugene kill one walker to going, “Holy crap, he just killed three! The last time I saw him, he was running away from them.” So we took that to (showrunner) Angela Kang and she was like, “Yeah, I love it. Let’s do it.” And it was exciting to see that he’s basically a badass now.
We also see that Alexandria is thriving in certain ways; more crops, more organized, new structures and buildings, and they’ve got a pretty well-oiled society going on within the walls. Can we assume Eugene has been a big part of engineering all that as well?
McDermitt: Yeah, we saw that in the first five episodes. He was working on the plans for the bridge. He is the big brain that brings it all together. But the communities are definitely working together to make that happen, not kind of like just one person, which is awesome. Each community is six years older as well, and it’s possible that we have other survivors that we’ve come in contact with that maybe know a thing or two about building a pizza oven or whatever we were going to add. It’s not all just on Eugene, so that’s allowed him to continue to build his confidence as a survivor, learn how to be proficient in knives and that sort of thing.
His last big interaction with Rick was Rick telling him how important he was to their family, to their community, at a time when Eugene was apologizing for not having done more. You could tell, visibly, it meant a lot to Eugene to hear that from someone he respected so much. How much of that evolution of Eugene and this new confidence in him is a result of having gotten that praise, that recognition, that respect from Rick?
McDermitt: I think you nailed it perfectly. I think that’s exactly it. He’s received the recognition from Abraham back in season 6 when Eugene stepped up to take the RV and try to lead the Saviors away. Abraham said, “You are a survivor,” like, you are a person who can live in this world and be self-sufficient. That was huge for them, that moment. And then as we see him get kidnapped by Negan,
Negan starts to (spark) more and more value within Eugene. I think Eugene needs that affirmation; he needs people to say, “Hey, you’re not just this guy that’s annoying me. You actually add value to this group.” And I think to finally get that last piece from Rick was awesome. It was something that he’d never had, and he had been with Rick a long time. Not that Rick was mistreating him or anything, but it was this thing: Eugene said, “If I could have done more —” and Rick said, “Don’t say that. You did all this, and after everything, that is everything.” That’s a huge moment for Eugene. I think without that, we may not have seen Eugene, who he is after the six-year time jump.
(Photo by Gene Page/AMC)
His new confidence allows him to try to take his friendship with Rosita to the next level, too. Do you think he’s always been in love with Rosita?
McDermitt: I think he’s always been girl crazy, and I think with her, she is probably the person that he’s closest with who’s left within this group of survivors. He’s just always had an eye on her and been attracted to her, but also, they have a brother-sister relationship more than anything, so maybe he’s never really stepped up to do anything. But I think what’s really driving this is seeing that Rosita and Gabriel are together, Eugene maybe feeling left out, like, “How come I didn’t get a chance?” He says, “Look, I get it: Machete-wielding men of the cloth aren’t exactly a dime a dozen. If that’s your thing, that’s your thing. But there’s other people, people who’ve known you longer, people with a different set of skills that —” And as he’s evolving and growing into this bigger survivor who can be extremely self-sufficient — we see Daryl off living on his own. It wouldn’t surprise me if Eugene feels like he could do that, too, if push came to shove.
I think he’s been wanting to not be left out for his whole life. I don’t know that he would necessarily settle down if the apocalypse didn’t happen. He’s just comfortable being him, but he’s grown so much it’s like, OK, maybe I should try a relationship. And who’s the person I know the best? And that would be Rosita.
What do you think Eugene’s romance history is? Do you think he’s ever been in love before? Had he ever dated before? Or as you said, that just wasn’t something that was really important to him before the apocalypse?
McDermitt: I’ve always assumed that he’s never really dated. He was just comfortable being — I always thought he lived with his mother — just comfortable being in his own world, playing his video games and eating Flamin’ Hot Cheetos, and stuff like that.
Is there a possibility that there is going to be a little love triangle with Eugene and Rosita and Gabriel?
McDermitt: I will say that there’s more story to tell as it pertains to Eugene and Rosita and their relationship, and maybe his pursuit of their relationship. We have more story to tell there. I’m not going to mention other characters and what might happen there. But really, what we see at the end of (“Who Are You Now?”) is just that the walkers are starting to talk, and Eugene has injured himself and he’s getting away. And even though he feels like he’s going to die, he still stops to just say to Rosita, “Look, I have to say this now —” and she’s like, “Don’t make this weird,” which I absolutely loved. It’s one of those things where it’s still on his mind, and he just needs to get this out, and he definitely feels like he’s going to die at this point, which is a scary place to be.
That scene with the talking walkers is, in nine seasons, the creepiest, scariest walkers have ever been. What can you say about that new development? Is this an evolving zombiedom, or — something else?
McDermitt: I think we see that it’s something completely different, and it’s throwing them for a loop. It’s a different kind of threat and scare. And I think that Eugene, as comfortable as he’s become around walkers and killing them with his knife — all of a sudden the game’s been turned on its head. Maybe everything that he knew is not true. Walkers don’t move that fast, but what we know of them has changed. He’s trying to get to safety now, but I think there will come a time where he’s going to figure out what’s happening, because he is a man of science, at the heart of who he is.
A lot has happened in six years. Carol has way more hair, Eugene has very different hair. Siddiq is hinting to Luke that something happened to make Michonne and the Alexandrians less likely to take people in. We see briefly Michonne has this giant scar on her back that looks like it might have come from some surgical procedure. Are we going to find out some of the things that the group has experienced in these last six years?
McDermitt: Yeah. We’re just starting to unpack that, and I don’t want to say too much about it, because I don’t know exactly where we’ll get more information. But this isn’t the kind of show that just leaves things unanswered. I know that we will unpack that story a little bit more.
We also don’t know why Daryl is out there in the woods by himself.
McDermitt: Yeah, for sure. And I’m really excited about where the story is headed, because Angela and her writers, they’ve all just done an amazing job with the story. I was a fan of the show at the start, and this feels like the early episodes, even though the world is bigger, the cast is bigger. It feels very rich emotionally, and it’s very story driven and character driven, not necessarily all like, “Kill!” or things like that. Our show has done that in the past, and any other show could easily just go into that full time, but this show’s done a good job of continuing to put the story first, and develop these characters and push them forward, because from that we’re going to get new storylines. That’s the cool thing: It’s like, “Yes, something has happened within this six-year time jump, and all of these people that you thought you knew are different, they’ve changed.” We’re going to see that played out more, and that’s what’s exciting.
Jumping ahead a bit to next week, Michael Cudlitz is returning as the director of the episode, “Stradivarius.” You and Christian Serratos came into the show with him as Abraham, “Abraham’s Army.” I know you guys are close. What was that like to have him back as the director?
McDermitt: It’s so exciting to have him around. This was his first time directing, and he’s great. For the last few years, probably even longer, but as long as I’ve known him, he’s been shadowing directors, learning from people, and he’s been waiting for the right time. And there was a moment where he was shadowing, maybe it was Ben McKenzie over on Gotham, because they worked together on Southland, and I texted him, and I said, “How’s that going?” and he said, “You know what, all my instincts are there, I’m not worried about anything. I’m comfortable. I’m really ready to direct an episode of The Walking Dead.” And so to have him there, a man who’s completely confident in his abilities, was exciting. And everybody who’s seen the episode, I haven’t seen it yet, but everybody who’s seen it says it’s amazing and that he did such a great job. I would hope that we get him back next year for multiple episodes.
And here’s another thing: He knows a lot of the actors, and he knows a lot of their crutches, things that they fall back on, and he can get in there and needle them a bit, and get them to give a different performance at times, instead of falling into the same old rhythm. I’m guilty of it myself, and that’s what’s great about someone who knows the people and knows the show so well: They can do that. So it was awesome that Angela was able to give him an opportunity to come and direct.
Did it feel like especially good timing to have him back? He is such a leader kind of guy. Just as Andy Lincoln was wrapping up his run on the show, did it feel good to have Michael return?
McDermitt: Absolutely. And I don’t know if there are specific episodes that certain directors are requested for. I don’t know if he was specifically requested for episode seven, or if it was just that’s how the schedule worked out. But it ended up being great, because Mike is a leader and, again, he knows everybody. Not that the wheels were coming off the bus at all, but to have someone there after Andy left, someone that we all knew and felt comfortable with, it was great.
(Photo by Jackson Lee Davis/AMC)
For you, what’s the biggest difference on set without Andy Lincoln there?
McDermitt: The biggest difference honestly is off set. He and I would golf a lot, and hang out and chat, and I’m missing not having that guy there to make fun of and for him to make fun of me, and talk about life and things like. That’s the biggest difference. His fingerprints are all over this show. This has always been a collaboration, and … there’s a lot of people on our crew that were here season 1, episode one, and it’s still the same show. Also, this season was the first time I really worked with Andy in any capacity. I’ve been in group scenes, but to not have him there didn’t feel like he was gone in a weird way. It’s only seeing him outside of the show — we saw him at the premiere and things like that where he just looks different. He looks rested. He looks like the Andrew Lincoln that we knew way back before he ever started the show. That’s been the hardest part, to just not see him as much outside of set.
Who’s the better golfer, you or him?
McDermitt: He’ll tell you it’s him, but I take lessons and I’m really good — that’s all bullshit. He’s won so much money off of me. He’s ruthless.
The Walking Dead airs Sundays at 9/8C on AMC.
(Photo by Gene Page/AMC)
Rick Grimes is gone from one part of The Walking Dead TV world, but his departure in Sunday’s “What Comes After” sparked the announcement that we’ll continue to follow his story — with Andrew Lincoln returning to his iconic role — in a trio of made-for-AMC movies that will begin production in 2019.
The movies are the first specific projects that former TWD showrunner/now chief content officer Scott Gimple has clued fans in on, but the growing TWD TV universe will also include new projects with new characters, and old characters — even some dead ones — returning in new ways. Gimple talked to Rotten Tomatoes about plans for the future, shared how Robert Kirkman’s comic-book backstories might be getting movie or limited-series treatments, confirmed we will find out more about Jadis and the helicopter people (on the series and in the Rick Grimes movies), and teased the “brand new show” The Walking Dead becomes with Sunday’s episode.
Kimberly Potts for Rotten Tomatoes: It’s sad to think about The Walking Dead without Rick Grimes, but that teaser of the next three episodes that aired immediately after Sunday’s episode was exciting. We’re going to see these other characters we’re invested in find out what they’re capable of, see who they will become, who the new leadership will be, without Rick. Did that inspire the writers and the cast after Andy Lincoln’s departure?
There’s a couple of things. The end of the episode, we saw the helicopter fly off, and we held on that frame, and the trees grew and one of the trees fell down, and the exciting scene of these people being saved … and we see that it’s Not-So-Little Asskicker, Judith Grimes. To me, that was … it’s like it almost fulfilled the previous eight years and five episodes, and yet also launched everything into this brand new world. It’s starting with [issue] 127 of the comics and The Whisperers, and we have these new characters. And even more importantly, there’s these beloved characters we have who have evolved. And they’ve evolved without us over these six years [of the time jump], and we get to find out where they’re at, meet them again, see what’s happening, see the relationships of it. I think the audience is in for, yet again, a brand new show that they will have to kind of learn all over again in an exciting way.
At the same time, that opportunity exists now for Rick in these upcoming movies. He has a freedom that he hasn’t really had in the time that we’ve gotten to know him on the series, and that he probably didn’t really have when he was a sheriff and he had this young family. How much will that be the driving force of the Rick movies?
(Laughing) You make it sound like he’s going off to party. Rick Grimes is at the center of them, and we’ve seen him evolve through these eight years and five episodes from a man with a very strict moral code living in … it took him a while to sort of leave the world he had lost, enter the world of after everything. And through that time he built himself up and he broke down and he had incredible losses and he lost his mind at points. He became incredibly pragmatic and even brutal at some points. And in the end, Carl was able to bring all those pieces of him together and get back some of what he had lost from that very first Rick Grimes that we saw, and I think that made for a beautiful ending of a chapter.
But now that he understands this world, that he has both the capacity for humanity and brutality, of pragmatism and idealism, it puts him in a very interesting place for yet another evolution. To find himself in a place, in a situation, that challenges him in ways that we haven’t seen, and that all of these experiences have been trying to set him up for. So, it’s going to be a brand-new story. It’ll be very much unlike what we’ve seen, and it’s very scary in some ways, but I think it’s doing right by the character by challenging him in ways that are completely different than how he has been challenged before.
One of my favorite things about “What Comes After” is that Rick literally got back on the horse. The man fell on rebar! He pulled himself off of rebar, and literally got back on the horse.
And then he got back on the horse.
You’re working now on the script for the first movie. What can you say about the logistics of Rick’s story continuing? It’s tough to imagine a Rick Grimes who survives and gets well physically and then doesn’t immediately go back to his people.
I can’t get into much of it, but what you bring up is an incredibly big part of it. You’re right, the connection with what he has back at home is a critical part of who he is. It is a critical part of his story moving forward. But it won’t be so easy as even the most difficult thing of just getting back. He’s going to find himself in the center of a situation that’s very complicated and different and unusual to what we’ve seen, but his love of his family — and really that last episode was all about his family and what his family is and what it means to him — that’s such a huge part of this.
(Photo by Jackson Lee Davis/AMC)
Jadis and the helicopter people are out of the picture, too, now that they’ve flown off with Rick. Will we eventually find out more about their backstory?
Yes. There’ll be some explanation of what that’s all about. We’re going to find out more about the relationship of Jadis and the helicopter and all that. That stuff is part of the movies. People shouldn’t expect to see a lot more of that on The Walking Dead, but I will say that we’re going to tell the story of what happened in these years that have passed on The Walking Dead. It is possible that people might see some other stories that have to do with that group on the helicopters within the TV show. But not a ton of it.
Do you have the arc of all three Rick movies planned out?
Oh, yeah. The arc is planned. They’re not finished, but absolutely, we know the arc.
This expansion of the TV universe will include a lot of other characters —characters who are no longer part of the original series, characters who maybe are no longer alive. Could that mean, for instance, a movie or limited series about The Governor, based on the novels by Robert Kirkman and Jay Bonansinga, or Negan’s backstory, from the series Kirkman did within the comics last year, that things like that could be explored in movies or limited series?
Yeah, that’s exactly it. Those aren’t going to be the whole of it. We want to have new characters, we want to have stuff that is completely unattached to anything we’ve seen before, too. Potentially just not even anything more than a great story within this universe that doesn’t necessarily have to be, you know, Eugene’s cousin. We will have stuff that connects, and we’ll have stuff that just sits completely on its own and it’s just a great story. We really want to pursue variety and we really want to have stories that are very distinct from one another. We want to have new voices telling them. I’m excited to be doing a lot of stuff within this, but we’re going to be having a lot of other people doing things. I look forward to working with them, as I worked with Angela [Kang, TWD showrunner], as I worked with [Fear the Walking Dead showrunners] Andrew [Chambliss] and Ian [Goldberg] to get their stories going.
New voices are incredibly important to this, because we want the variety. We want to see things that we haven’t seen before, explore tones that we haven’t seen before, in different corners of the world; see situations that are completely different than what we’ve seen before on the show. So these specials, and these series of varying length, these movies of varying scope, are going to give us really, really different expressions of the what The Walking Dead is and what The Walking Dead can be.
Will Fear the Walking Dead be included in this expansion of the TV universe?
Absolutely. We’re going to see characters from Fear in other expressions. We might see characters from Fear who are no longer there. We might explore incidents and histories that have been discussed. Yeah, it’s all on the table. A lot of this is driven by, we’ve been doing this for going on nine years now, and the audience has had questions all along. What about this? What about that? What about this character with that character? We’re going to see some of those questions answered.
Like, maybe we’ll finally find out what happened to Tobias, the apocalypse-savvy teen from the first season of FTWD?
Oh my God, yes. So many questions about that. Anything is possible. I will say, other sort of unexpected crossovers are possible. It really is energizing. You feel like a kid in a candy store to be able to look at all of these characters in a different way and to look at their histories. I really can’t wait to dive into it.
It worked incredibly well with Morgan, sending him over to the FTWD storyline. The last season of Fear was so good. I know Morgan is a very special character to you and you’ve written so many of his best moments. Is there a chance maybe Rick and Morgan, the first great friendship of TWD, could meet up again?
An annoying answer, but anything is possible. This is all a very long-range plan. But it’s the feeling of those fantasy meetings and those kinds of pair-ups that get us excited. We want to get back to those, too.
(Photo by Jackson Lee Davis/AMC)
In terms of The Walking Dead, and the rest of season 9, what was most important when thinking about the post-Rick world?
I guess the words that come to mind are to seize upon the moment of the new. With both shows, they reinvent themselves every eight episodes, but this, of course, is the biggest reinvention of the series. We had flirted with it happening at the end of season 8. Andy knew about my new position. Pretty much everybody on Walking Dead knew about it to a degree, and we were just trying, as I elevated Angela to showrunner, to figure it out. I was excited for Angela to be the embodiment of that reinvention, to be that new voice, even though she’s a vet on the show. With Angela coming in at this point when Rick is leaving, it was just like, wow, let’s seize upon these circumstances to tell something brand new. And it goes back to Robert Kirkman again. Robert shocked all of us who are into the [comic] with issue 127 [and the big time jump]. Robert is a genius, and he knows when to shift gears and when to surprise the audience, and he did that with 127. Knowing that we were moving towards that — Angela moving into the showrunner role, Andy going — assembling all of these parts in the right order and the right way and to seize upon this change to hopefully light the audience’s brains on fire with possibility, instead of “this thing is ending.” It’s like, no, things are just changing.
This season is so new and exciting, sophisticated and surprising, it really is an evolution of the show. And with a show that is in its ninth season, having these kinds of changes, they aren’t problems. They’re opportunities. Angela and the writers have just killed it, and the crew is just as great as they were. I see the same sort of motivations, the producers and the cast and the new cast coming in. I love this group of people. Cailey [Fleming, the new actress playing Judith] is amazing. And Magna (Nadia Hilker) and Yumiko (Eleanor Matsuura), the rest of the new group is just remarkable, and some really new and interesting actors. I can’t wait for people to see Lauren [Ridloff as Connie] and Angel [Theory as Kelly], next week. Their characters are amazing, but they are just charming and brilliant. It’s really something special. To be able to say that after losing Rick — and yes, we have stuff coming up of course with the movies and all that … I’m really excited for people to get excited about that — but they should be getting excited about The Walking Dead, too, because it really is a brand-new show.
The Walking Dead airs Sundays at 9 p.m. on AMC.
(Photo by © AMC)
And so, with an explosion and some reflection, Andrew Lincoln’s final episode of The Walking Dead aired Sunday night with at least two (somewhat) surprising turns. The episode also confirmed some people’s suspicions about how his Rick Grimes would exit the series, while establishing the series’ new status quo in its final moments.
But considering Rick spent much of the episode looking back on his life and his journey —with special visits from departed friends like Shane (Jon Bernthal), Herschel (the late Scott Wilson), and Sasha (Sonequa Martin-Green) — we were also left in a contemplative mood as AMC aired a special preview of the next three episodes. Specifically, Shane’s notion that Rick always had “it” in him had us thinking about his penchant for violence. While it was typically in the service of his family, it also took on brutal forms as he journeyed from King County to the bridge near Alexandria. So let’s take a look back at some of the key kills which defined Rick and informed one of his most surprising decisions.
SPOILER WARNING: The below contains spoilers for all seasons of The Walking Dead.
In some ways, it all really comes back to Rick’s first kill, the Bicycle Girl. The make-up effects and overall mood of the scene featuring Bicycle Girl (Melissa Cowan) were so impressive that AMC went back later to tell the story of Hannah (Lilli Birdsell), the person who once inhabited the corpse Rick encountered. But for Rick, she marks two important moments. She is the first undead corpse he encounters after waking up from his coma and the first walker he kills — even if she can’t technically walk. Though Rick has killed many, many walkers and people since that day, it is the real beginning of his post-apocalyptic life. And though he has accepted he must kill these creatures, he apologizes to the former Hannah nonetheless, establishing a pattern of mercy kills for some time to come.
While killing Shane was one of the most significant moments of the second season, the way Rick took charge to shoot Carol’s (Melissa McBride) daughter Sophia (Madison Lintz) established just how easily Rick can set aside his humanity to dispatch a walker with a familiar face. The girl disappeared in the season 2 premiere, only to be discovered when Shane let loose Herchel’s collection of zombies in the barn; after Shane and some of the others dealt with most of the walkers, Sophia’s corpse stumbled out. While the others stood by devastated — and Daryl (Norman Reedus) held Carol back from running to her — Rick took charge and ended the girl’s afterlife. Like Bicycle Girl, it was another mercy kill. But when it comes down to it, Rick demonstrated the capacity to shoot a child. Sure, a walker child, but the swiftness of his actions would reverberate for years to come.
(Photo by @ AMC)
And then there came the day when Rick’s choice to use lethal force switches from errands of mercy to a baser instinct. In the wake of killing Shane, Rick’s ability to trust was at an all-time low; which meant the men he and the group discovered in the West Georgia Correctional Facility were the least likely people to ever get on his good side. Nonetheless, Rick and the men came to an accord: he would help them clear a cellblock infested with walkers for a portion of the remaining food in the cafeteria. It seemed like a good deal until de facto prison leader Tomas (Nick Gomez) allowed the laundry room to fill with walkers and he made two not-so-subtle attempts to end Rick. After the first attempt, Tomas played it off like an accident, saying “s–t happens.” Following the second, Rick responded in kind before slamming his machete into Tomas’s skull. As the first significant kill of the prison storyline, Rick’s ruthless murder of Tomas proved any hesitation he once had about killing the living was well and truly gone.
While searching Georgia in search of Terminus, Rick, Daryl, Carl (Chandler Riggs), and Michonne (Danai Gurira) found themselves “guests” of The Claimers. Sore about the loss of one their men, Claimer leader Joe (Jeff Kober) announced his plan to kill Rick and Daryl while some of his men rape and kill Carl and Michonne. Rick, unarmed but in a rage, headbutted Joe, leading to a major scuffle. Joe managed to get the upper-hand and pinned Rick, but Rick delivered a killing blow by biting Joe in the neck and ripping out part of his jugular. In the chaos, Rick, Michonne and Daryl managed to kill the other Claimers, but Rick’s animalistic maneuver made it possible. As he later told Daryl, his brutality keeps the group alive.
Having survived the journey from the prison to Terminus only to discover there was no sanctuary there, Rick and the others led some of the remaining cannibalistic “Terminants” into an ambush at St. Sarah’s Church. The cannibals were dispatched with Rick saving a special slaughter for their leader, Gareth (Andrew J. West). But unlike some of the other brutal reprisals Rick delivered on our list, here he led the others into orchestrating a mass killing, indicating a potential despotic megalomania should they ever settle down in one place. Sure, they were being chased by cannibals, but once a person is forced into a corner like that, they leave some of their humanity behind. Additionally, Rick’s refusal to hear Gareth’s pleas of mercy — and the way Rick hacked him up — stood in sharp contrast to his more merciful self only a few years prior.
After facing the Terminants, Rick and his team reached the Alexandria Safe-Zone and were invited into the tract home community lead by Deanna (Tovah Feldshuh). Soon after Rick and Michonne became Alexandria constables, he began to tussle with community doctor Pete Anderson (Corey Brill) as he suspected the local physician got off on beating his wife. The situation led to Rick’s incarceration and a community meeting in which Pete killed Deanna’s husband. She gave Rick the go-ahead to execute him, which he did with cold efficiency. Like the Claimers and the Terminants before Pete, Rick’s lethal response came without the regard he once had for human life. And it would have been more terrifying and de-humanizing for the character if Rick wasn’t right once again.
(Photo by © AMC)
In the wake of Pete’s death, Rick became close with his widow, Jessie (Alexandra Breckenridge). But the bond didn’t quite hold strong enough when Rick was faced with letting her die to save Carl. Due to circumstances peculiar to The Walking Dead, Alexandria was overrun with walkers. In the chaos, Rick attempted to save himself, Carl, Jessie, and her children by using the walker-blood camouflage again. But, during the escape, Jessie’s youngest son Sam (Major Dodson) froze at the sight of another child walker and began to cry, attracting walker attention. Jessie tried her best to quiet him and get him moving, but in her own panic, she latched onto Carl’s hand. Deciding that she was dooming everyone to death, Rick made the only “sane” choice and cut off her hand off with a hatchet so Carl could get free. The walkers devoured Jessie and Sam as Rick’s cold-blooded streak expanded to people he cared about.
Then there was Rick’s one act of violence which, in the end, did not lead to someone dying. Rick’s journey was leading to this moment: After all the times he was forced to set aside his humanity to kill walkers with familiar faces, end imminent threats to Carl, and sacrifice others close to him, Rick chose not to exact vengeance on Savior leader Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan). Well, he still cut the man’s throat open, but his decision to order Siddiq (Avi Nash) to save him is the sort of mercy generally in short supply on The Walking Dead — especially when you consider how long he and Negan battled. Additionally, it is very surprising that Rick could reclaim some sense of mercy for the man who brutally beat Glen (Steven Yeun) to death.
But maybe sparing Negan was the only way Rick could become truly human again. In the 18 months following Rick’s act of mercy, he did a lot to rebuild the community around him. And in defeating Negan without brutally murdering him, Rick seemed to reclaim some sort of hope for the future.
(Photo by © AMC)
In the service of that future, much of season 9 so far has revolved around Rick’s attempts to repair a bridge near Alexandria. His ultimate goal was to establish trade between the nearby communities via the bridge, but after things went disastrously wrong in the previous episode, a severely wounded Rick found himself leading a horde of walkers right toward the bridge. Clearly, he only had once choice to defend the community from the walkers — blowing up the bridge while they shuffled along it. And while not the most violent act ever committed by Rick Grimes since he woke up from his coma, it is, in a way, the murder of his dream. At the same time, the visions Rick experienced may be the clearest explanation of his thought process ever rendered by the series. From the moment he got on his horse, he knew where he was going, but he had to work up to the strength to wreck the bridge — and his dream — to once again save his family.
And just when it seemed that saving his family would come at the cost of his life, Rick survived. Spirited away on a mysterious helicopter, one can only wonder what Rick will do to the people who took him from everything he knows and what they will face when he gets his strength back. Based on the kills we’ve looked at here, it will take some extraordinary circumstances to keep Rick in check and away from Alexandria.
Season 9 of The Walking Dead airs Sundays on AMC.
For a season premiere that launches with fans already aware its hero for the last eight years is going to be riding off into the apocalyptic sunset, The Walking Dead season 9 begins on some very hopeful notes. Said leader, Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln), is happily spending family time with his longtime love Michonne (Danai Gurira) and daughter Judith. Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) is safely tucked away inside an Alexandria jail cell. And though transportation challenges have become a pressing issue, Rick and Michonne and Maggie and Daryl and Carol and Eugene and – you get the idea: Rick’s whole crew – is honoring the memory of the late Carl Grimes (Chandler Riggs) by trying to rebuild not just their community, but a whole, multi-community society.
(Photo by Jackson Lee Davis/AMC)
Of course, there are some issues within that goal. Rick and Michonne and Maggie and Daryl and Carol and Eugene may all support the same big-picture idea of living together peacefully, but they certainly do not all agree about whether such lofty ideals are possible (even with Negan locked away), and how they should set about achieving them if they are. Oh, and Negan, specifically the continuing survival of, is a big sticking point with some members of the group, too. So while there’s hope ahead, there’s heartbreak, too, along with a new group of villains who may make Negan and Lucille look almost sane and tame in comparison, some frisky and surprising new romances, and a pair of blasts from the past that add to the excitement of season 9 on camera and behind the scenes.
Ahead, 10 things you need to know before Sunday’s season premiere:
The action of season 9 picks up 18 months after the events of the war with the Saviors in season 8. Rick Grimes and friends, who were trying to build a new world from their Alexandria home base until Negan and the Saviors so brutally interrupted, are now scattered throughout the nearby communities. New relationships have been forged, while some old friendships are suffering from visible tensions. Supplies are dwindling rapidly, and everyone’s looking to old school methods of survival. Things get downright Little House in the Apocalypse when near depletion of the gas supply forces the use of horses and wagons for transportation, while Eugene (Josh McDermitt) tries to cook up a new source of fuel.
And it would be no fun to spoil a clever source of new food supplies – or the surprising person who points Rick and company to it – but suffice it to say that seeing the gang forced to be super resourceful as they attempt to construct an elaborate new society is the fresh jolt the show (and viewers) needed after two full seasons of misery caused by the arrival of Negan and his murderous minions. There is some fun to be had with these new adventures (especially during a road trip to Washington D.C.), which also serve as a way to reveal little nuggets of backstory on one of the show’s most mysterious characters.
(Photo by Gene Page/AMC)
Carl’s last wishes, for his father to make peace with Negan and the Saviors and channel his energies into bringing all the local communities together, is clearly what’s motivating Rick and Michonne in the new season. When we meet up with them, they’re negotiating deals between the communities for the sharing of supplies, leading efforts to gather new supplies, and spending lots of quality family time with Judith. Again, not to spoil any specifics, we actually see Rick laughing and Richonne in several romantic moments that aren’t just quick smooches while on the run from the danger of the moment.
As for the couple’s other relationships … Daryl and Maggie are particularly unhappy that Negan is still alive, and that Rick and Michonne made the decision to spare him despite the original plan that Negan would pay for the deaths of Glenn and Abraham with his own life. And while some of the Saviors see Rick as the hero who sprung them from life under Negan’s oppressive thumb, not all of them are happy with the dismantling of life as they knew it at the Sanctuary. It’s a situation that’s about to become a major problem, Daryl warns Rick.
Series star Andy Lincoln has already confirmed he’ll return to The Walking Dead to direct a season 10 episode, and he’ll be back on set during season 9 to shadow another director in preparation for that gig. But his days as Rick Grimes are rapidly coming to a close. AMC has confirmed nothing beyond his departure, but scuttlebutt among several sources is that Rick bids his loved ones adieu in episode five, “What Comes After,” an installment directed by EP Greg Nicotero (who also directs the season premiere) and co-written by former TWD showrunner-turned chief content officer Scott Gimple.
Will Rick die? Or, as so many fans have theorized/hoped, will an injured Rick take his leave in that helicopter he first spotted in season 8, meaning he might survive and eventually return to the original series or another spin-off project somewhere down the road? It’s tough to imagine a Walking Dead universe where Rick Grimes is definitively gone, and bringing the helicopter into play with his exit would be a nice full-circle story line moment.
(Photo by Jackson Lee Davis/AMC)
Leaving that is, but new TWD showrunner Angela Kang has already confirmed she plans to have Maggie return as leader of the Hilltop community in season 10. For now, Lauren Cohan is going off to star in ABC’s midseason spy dramedy Whiskey Cavalier – with Scott Foley and another TWD alum, Tyler James Williams. Beyond those details, nothing has been confirmed about exactly how or when Maggie will take a break from the Hilltop. But it looks like episode six, “Who Are You Now,” could be the when. And with more of the leadership of the new world-building falling onto Maggie’s shoulders after Rick is gone, it would make perfect sense that Maggie might finally take Georgie – Jayne Atkinson’s traveling record album collector who left Maggie and company with valuable instructions on jumpstarting society last season – up on the offer to visit and observe Georgie’s community. That could also be the show’s way of introducing viewers to the Commonwealth, the comic book group of Ohio communities that’s already operating as a more organized, technologically advanced post-apocalyptic society.
(Photo by Gene Page/AMC)
Onscreen, Jon Bernthal returns as Shane Walsh, Rick’s BFF-turned-enemy who Rick was forced to kill in season 2, for an appearance that almost certainly ties in with Rick’s exit. Will the ghost of Shane visit Rick to torment him about how Lori and Carl died on Rick’s watch? Will flashback Shane appear as a dying Rick tells Michonne more about the man he believes to be Judith’s biological father?
Meanwhile, behind-the-scenes, Michael Cudlitz – a.k.a. Abraham Ford – becomes the first TWD cast member to direct an episode, as he helms the Daryl-centric seventh episode, “Stradivarius.” Cudlitz, now starring in ABC’s new fall comedy The Kids Are Alright, joins Fear the Walking Dead star Colman Domingo as the only two cast members, so far, to also direct in TWD TV universe.
(Photo by Jackson Lee Davis/AMC)
Even before his best friend Rick leaves, Daryl has assumed more of a leadership position within the group, and to say he’s not thrilled about it is an understatement. Also new: Norman Reedus’ silent brooder is no longer a man of few words, as he lets Rick, and his other BFF, Carol, know exactly how he feels about his new duties and how geographically splintered Rick’s crew is. The only person angrier than Daryl, in fact, is Maggie, and both of them are directing a good deal of that anger and resentment towards Rick, which will ratchet tensions up to a very respectable level as Rick’s parting looms.
(Photo by Jaap Buitendijk. © Warner Bros. / courtesy Everett Collection)
If you haven’t read the comics, the Whisperers are the creepy survivors who peel walkers and wear their undead skin to walk stealthily among zombies and humans alike. They are cold, dangerous people who believe nothing is more important than their own survival – even Negan has standards against brutality like rape (do not RIP, Rapey Davey) – and who are likely to wreak the same kinds of major havoc in the TV series as they do in the comic book. They will also bring some stellar, recognizable faces – well, recognizable under the zombie skins, anyway – to the series, as Whisperer leader Alpha will be played by Oscar nominee Samantha Morton, while Alpha’s chief lieutenant, Beta, will be played by Sons of Anarchy and The Outsiders alum Ryan Hurst.
(Photo by Presley Ann/Getty Images)
Grace Under Fire star Brett Butler and John Finn – a.k.a. Pacey’s dad on Dawson’s Creek – play Tammy and Earl Rose, Hilltop citizens who support Maggie as their leader … at first. Rhys Coiro – best known as volatile director Billy Walsh on Entourage – plays Savior Jed, who is still unhappy about the new, post-Negan way of life for the Saviors.
Zach McGowan (Black Sails, pictured above) appears as a rebellious Savior who clashes with Daryl. And Castle Rock and Ozark alum Cassady McClincy will play Lydia, the daughter of brutal Alpha. In the Walking Dead comics, Lydia becomes romantically involved with Carl, so now there’s a possibility she’ll become involved with another teen survivor.
Given the rumor that the season will include another, much longer time jump after that 18-month lapse at the beginning, maybe Lydia will make the acquaintance of an older Henry?
As for the teen Carl did have a romance with before his tragic death – Enid (Katelyn Nacon) – she’s still very close to Maggie, but she’s also taken on a surprising new role at the Hilltop, and it’s one that draws her into life-saving action early in the season.
Oh, and one more teaser about the new characters mentioned above: one of them pretty quickly ends up behind bars, just like Negan.
(Photo by Jackson Lee Davis/AMC)
Rick and Michonne are closer than ever, and Richonne fans will get to enjoy a lot of sweet and sexy moments with them before Rick becomes a memory. And various trailers for season 9 have also hinted at new romances between Carol (Melissa McBride) and Ezekiel (Khary Payton) and the beloved Jerry (Cooper Andrews) and Nabila (Nadine Marissa). But what will surely be the you-never-saw-this-one-coming hook-up of the entire series also unfolds within the first three episodes of the season, and all we can say about it is, truly, you never saw this one coming!
(Photo by Jackson Lee Davis/AMC)
You will definitely find out much more about that helicopter from last season, including how Jadis (Pollyanna McIntosh), er, Anne, is connected to it.
The Walking Dead season 9 premieres October 7 at 9 p.m. ET
(Photo by DC Universe)
The Comic-Con International: San Diego programming schedule is a mammoth list of competing ideas and events for fans of movies, television, animation, games, cosplay, and, yes, comic books. It is also an exciting look at the sort of experiences con-goers will find themselves lining up for next week. For those at home, it also offers a glimpse at some of the videos they might be watching on Twitter and YouTube soon after. And as the convention becomes more and more focused on television – and TV based on comic books – learning about all of those events could be a troublesome task. But we’ve sifted through the schedule to give you this round-up of the panels, presentations, and Q&As about your favorite comic book shows taking place across the week.
(Photo by Marvel)
The upcoming series of animated shorts brings together Quake (voiced by Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s Chloe Bennet), Squirrel Girl (Milana Vayntrub), Ms. Marvel (Kathreen Khavari), and Patriot (Kamil McFadden) to form a new supergroup for a new generation. The session will feature the voice cast and Marvel’s Cort Lane, Marsha Griffin, and Sana Amanat as they offer a sneak peek at the series and, quite possibly, make a special announcement.
Time & Location: 3:15 p.m. in Room 6DE
For Those At Home: If the sneak peek includes one of the first Marvel Rising shorts, it may end up online shortly after the panel.
(Photo by Netflix)
Jeph Loeb, head of Marvel’s TV division, and “surprise guests” will offer the first inside look at the second season of Iron Fist. Considering the thoroughly rebooted Danny Rand (Finn Jones) seen in the second season of Luke Cage, it will be interesting to see if the new year – and new showrunner Raven Metzner – will follow through on that promise as both he and Colleen Wing (Jessica Henwick) take to defending downtown.
Time & Location: 6 p.m. in Ballroom 20
For Those At Home: A trailer almost seems like a given, as well as a release date announcement.
(Photo by AMC)
It is now a Comic-Con tradition for the two shows to do back-to-back panels and 2018 will be no exception. During Fear’s hour, members of the cast like Alycia Debnam-Carey, Colman Domingo, Lennie James, and Danay Garcia – alongside FX wizard Greg Nicotero, showrunners Andrew Chambliss, and Ian Goldberg and executive producers Scott M. Gimple, Robert Kirkman, Gale Anne Hurd, and Dave Alpert – will discuss the road so far and what to expect when the show returns in August. In the second hour, Walking Dead showrunner Angela Kang and stars Andrew Lincoln, Norman Reedus, Danai Gurira, Melissa McBride, and Jeffrey Dean Morgan will offer their insights into the upcoming ninth season of the long-running zombie series. Both sessions will include fan Q&As in which cast and crew will deftly avoid spoilers.
Time & Location: 11:15 a.m. in Hall H
For Those At Home: Another Walking Dead tradition is the intense season previews, which generally appear on AMC’s YouTube page before the panel ends.
(Photo by Warner Bros. Animation)
My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic’s Lauren Faust brings the DC Super Hero Girls brand to Cartoon Network in a new animated series focused on teenage versions of Wonder Woman, Supergirl, and Batgirl. Faust and other members of the creative team will offer a first look at the new show.
Time & Location: 12:20 p.m. in Room 6DE
For Those At Home: It would be quite surprising if a clip from the show did not surface after the presentation.
(Photo by Michelle Faye/Wynonna Earp Season 2, Inc./Syfy)
As the series’ third season debuts on the same day, the stars of Wynonna Earp, showrunner Emily Andras and creator Beau Smith will present a special screening of the premiere, “Blood Red and Going Down.”
Time & Location: 5 p.m. at the Horton Grand Theater
For Those At Home: Sadly, this one sounds like a genuine Comic-Con exclusive. But as the episode airs the same night – and, in fact, also airs during a special preview on Monday, July 16 – Earpers will be in the know and ready to discuss the episode on Twitter.
(Photo by Freeform/Alfonso Bresciani)
Stars Olivia Holt, Aubrey Joseph, Emma Lahana, Ally Maki, and showrunner Joe Pokaski will present “never-before-seen footage” and take audience questions. Since it is the show’s first convention panel following its debut in June, you can bet fans of the show will be ready to ask about the changes to the traditional Cloak & Dagger.
Time & Location: 5:45 p.m. in Ballroom 20
For Those At Home: That never-before-seen footage may make its way to Freeform’s YouTube channel, but it will be surprising if it is anything different from the episode preview seen during the show’s regular timeslot.
(Photo by Frank Ockenfels 3/AMC/Sony Pictures Television)
Stars Dominic Cooper, Ruth Negga, and Joseph Gilgun join executive producers Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg, and showrunner Sam Catlin for a talk about the current state of play going into season 3’s halfway point. Expect to hear about the Tombs, the Allfather, and maybe even some of God’s plan for Jesse. Or maybe the cast will talk about what they had for dinner.
Time & Location: 7:30 p.m. in Hall H
For Those At Home: Since the season will be at the midway point, you might expect some sort of extended trailer for the latter half. Or an extended “next week on Preacher” promo.
(Photo by The CW)
The series makes its Comic-Con return for an “electrifying look” at the upcoming second season. Stars like Cress Williams, China Anne McClain, Nafessa Williams, and Christine Adams are scheduled to appear alongside showrunner Salim Akil.
Time & Location: 11 a.m. in Ballroom 20
For Those At Home: As these panels often occur before production resumes on the show, it is possible the video presentation will not be available online later. But if they have begun shooting, you may find a season 2 sizzle reel online before too long. Meanwhile, more than few people are hoping an Arrowverse crossover announcement will emerge from the Q&A.
(Photo by Steffan Hill/Syfy)
Cast members Cameron Cuffe, Ann Ogbomo, Wallis Day, and Shaun Sipos alongside showrunner Cameron Welsh and DC Entertainment’s Dan Evans will take a look back at the surprising first season and tease what is to come in the program’s second year.
Time & Location: 12 p.m. in the Indigo Ballroom at the Hilton Bayfront Hotel
For Those At Home: Like Black Lightning, the chances of a trailer depend entirely on whether or not they resumed production in time. But there is a good chance a season 2 casting announcement may be made.
The cast and crew of the new Big Hero 6 television series will discuss bringing the movie’s characters to television and offer some never-before-seen clips from the series. With Scott Adsit reprising his role as Baymax, you can expect a lot of his responses to have a certain gentle, robotic tone to them.
Time & Location: 12:30 p.m. in Room 6A.
For Those At Home: That never-before-seen footage might be available online at some point.
(Photo by Miller Mobley/FOX)
Executive producers Matt Nix and Jeph Loeb, and stars Stephen Moyer, Sean Teale, Jamie Chung, Emma Dumont, Blair Redford, Natalie Alyn Lind, and Skyler Samuels intend to offer an extended first look at the upcoming second season and, most likely, answer fan questions about certain characters’ choices in the season 1 finale.
Time & Location: 2:30 p.m. in Ballroom 20
For Those At Home: You can be sure that first-look video will be uploaded to YouTube before too long.
(Photo by Robert Voets/Warner Bros)
Another Comic-Con tradition is the Arrowverse’s absolute takeover of Ballroom 20 on Saturday afternoon. All four shows offer fans ample opportunities for questions and special sneak peeks of their upcoming seasons. Cast and producers will be on hand to tease future events and maybe even reveal more information on Batwoman, who will make her Arrowverse debut in this year’s crossover event.
Time & Location: 3:30 p.m. – 6:30 p.m. in Ballroom 20
For Those At Home: The CW is pretty good at getting their sizzle reels onto its YouTube page fairly quickly, but it remains to be seen how much new footage each show will have to share.
The upcoming SYFY series based on the comic book by Remender and Wes Craig will make its Comic-Con debut. Both will be on hand with castmembers like Benjamin Wadsworth and Benedict Wong and showrunners Miles Orion Feldsott and Mick Betancourt to offer a sneak peek of the series, due out in 2019.
Time & Location: 6 p.m. in the Indigo Ballroom at the Hilton Bayfront Hotel
For Those At Home: Unless the sneak peek ends up being the full pilot episode, expect to see the video sooner rather than later.
(Photo by Syfy)
Stars Melanie Scrofano, Shamier Anderson, Tim Rozon, Dominique Provost-Chalkley, Katherine Barrell, Varun Saranga, Chantel Riley, showrunner Emily Andras, and comic book creator Beau Smith return to Comic-Con for the third lovefest dedicated to everyone’s favorite Revenant hunter. While there is the promise of exclusive material, the panel usually becomes an opportunity for fans to offer their heartfelt praise to the cast and crew.
Time & Location: 6:45 p.m. in Room 6DE.
For Those At Home: Traditionally, the cast and crew have announced the show’s renewal at the Comic-Con panel. Fans are hoping it will be three-for-three and what better news can you give the Earpers at home?
Riverdale takes over Hall H for the first time as cast and crew convene to discuss the implications of Archie’s (KJ Apa) arrest at the end of the second season. The hour also promises to include a special video presentation and a fan Q&A in which some fans will attempt to learn star Cole Sprouse’s relationship status.
Time & Location: 11:45 a.m. in Hall H
For Those At Home: Should that video presentation offer a very early look at season 2, that footage will be repurposed and uploaded for all to see in the fullness of time.
Time & Location: 1:30 p.m. in Room 6A
Marvel Senior Vice President for Animation and Family Entertainment Cort Lane will offer a preview of the upcoming seasons of Marvel’s Avengers: Black Panther’s Quest and Marvel’s Spider-Man. Sneak peeks and surprises are also promised.
For Those At Home: Marvel tends to be pretty good about getting clips and trailers up quickly.
(Photo by Suzanne Tenner/FX)
Series creator Noah Hawley, executive producers John Cameron, Marvel Televison’s Jeph Loeb, and members of the cast will discuss season 2’s shocking revelations and tease things to come in season 3.
Time & Location: 2:15 p.m. in Hall H
For Those At Home: Considering Legion is in between production blocks, it seems unlikely any new footage will be available during the event or afterward.
And outside the convention center, DC Universe will offer a larger-than-life installation to fans centered on the shows and other content the upcoming streaming service will offer later this fall. Guests of the DC Universe Experience will visit Dick Grayson’s loft from Titans, peruse the lab of Doom Patrol’s Dr. Niles Caulder, avoid the deadly virus of Swamp Thing, create some chaos with Harley Quinn, and examine some rare DC Comics artwork and memorabilia not usually available to the public. The experience will be open throughout the convention from 9:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. (9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Sunday, July 22). Fans attending the con can pre-register at dcuniverse.com.
Location: Hilton San Diego Gaslamp Quarter, 401 K Street, San Diego, CA 92101
For Those At Home: This one is a genuine Comic-Con exclusive.
Be sure to check out Rotten Tomatoes’ own live event during Comic-Con, Your Opinion Sucks! It’s the ultimate fans vs. critics face off, and you can watch it live in San Diego or on video at Rotten Tomatoes.
(Photo by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment)
The 2018 Electronic Entertainment Expo offered some promising new titles inspired by our favorite films and television shows when it hit the Los Angeles Convention Center June 12-14. Games based on movies and serialized TV are nothing new, but the genre has a history of pushing out products more focused on promoting an IP than offering a quality interactive experience.
That’s changing. Game developers, passionate about the same titles as the rest of us, are shelving the marketing-spun schlock in favor of crafting ambitious projects that put us in our favorite fictional worlds.
Here are 10 we can’t wait to play!
A troubled survivor finds allies in an unexpected place; meanwhile, the life Madison has fought to build comes under threat. The second episode of season 4 of AMC’s Fear the Walking Dead airs at 9 p.m. on Sunday, April 22.
Season 2 description: In season 4 of Fear the Walking Dead, we will see the world of Madison Clark (Kim Dickens) and her family through new eyes — the eyes of Morgan Jones (Lennie James), joining the story from the world of The Walking Dead. The characters’ immediate past mixes with an uncertain present of struggle and discovery as they meet new friends, foes and threats. They fight for each other, against each other and against a legion of the dead to somehow build an existence against the crushing pressure of lives coming apart. There will be darkness and light; terror and grace; and the heroic, mercenary, and craven all crashing together towards a new reality.
Season 4 Tomatometer: 99%
Fear the Walking Dead airs Sundays at 9 p.m. on AMC.
