‘Walking Dead’ And ‘Talking Dead’ To Shuffle On For Another Season
Just in time for Halloween, AMC has committed to spending another year in its hellish post-apocalyptic zombie wasteland.The Walking DeadandTalking Deadhave both been renewed, taking the shows through 2017. More on theWalking DeadSeason 7 renewal after the jump.
AMC announced theWalking DeadSeason 7 renewal via press release today.Scott M. Gimplewill return as showrunner. (He took over the gig in Season 4, following Glen Mazzara and Frank Darabont.) Also coming back are executive producersRobert Kirkman,Gale Anne Hurd,David Alpert,Greg Nicotero, andTom Luse, and, presumably, whichever cast members survive Season 6.
The network has not publicly confirmed an episode count, but the last four seasons ofThe Walking Deadhave consisted of 16 episodes each. Likewise, while they haven’t said when exactly Season 7 will kick off, it’ll probably be around October 2016 in keeping with old habits.Talking Deadwill, as always, air right afterThe Walking Dead.
TheWalking Deadrenewal isn’t remotely surprising. The series continues to be a huge ratings-getter in the middle of its sixth season. The last episode, “Thank You,” drew over 13 million viewers, and became one of the most talked-about shows of the week afterJon Snow-inga fan-favorite character.Talking Dead, which debuted with Season 2 ofThe Walking Dead, continues to be popular as well. According to AMC,Talking Dead’s most recent installment was one of its highest-rated yet.
While AMC has plenty of other shows,The Walking Deadis still its biggest hit by far. This summer, the network even decided to extend the franchise withFear the Walking Dead, a spinoff / prequel set in the days leading up to the zombie apocalypse that Rick woke up to in theWalking Deadpremiere.Fearwas renewed for a second season before a single episode of the first had even aired.
AMC presidentCharlie Collierdiscussed theWalking DeadSeason 7 renewal decision in a cutesy statement:
Thank goodness someone had a Magic 8-Ball with them in our many long internal meetings about these renewals. When, on the third shake, ‘without a doubt’ filled the murky blue screen, we knew we had to proceed with new seasons of ‘The Walking Dead’ and ‘Talking Dead.’ All joking aside, we are so proud to share these shows with fans who have been so passionate, communicative and engaged. We are grateful for and continually impressed by the talent, effort and excellence on continuous display by Robert Kirkman, Scott Gimple, Chris Hardwick and the many people with whom we partner to make these unique shows possible. The result: More Walking and Talking. Hooray.
Not to nitpick, but he really should’ve included an exclamation point after that last “hooray.” A “hooray” followed by a period just looks sarcastic.
