It's been a few months since the cliffhanger ending of the latest season of AMC's The Walking Dead, an ending which has divided the fanbase due to its controversial lack of clarity but has also remained mysterious thanks to the show's top-notch secrecy. So say what you will about how the showrunners chose to handle the moment that Rick & Co. meet Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), it's still impressive that they've been able to keep his victim's identity a secret.

In a chat with EW, Greg Nicotero revealed just how far the production team had to go to keep that Season 6 cliffhanger under wraps. While I still think that they mishandled and perhaps misunderstood the highly anticipated introduction of Negan, The Walking Dead cast and crew are certainly sticking to the plan that has been laid out before them. Head over to EW for more from Nicotero about the decision to end Season 6 in such a manner, and read below for insight into the security surrounding the moment. Plus, learn a bit more about Negan himself in new teaser videos for Season 7, debuting October 23rd.

walking-dead-season-7-greg-nicotero — Image via AMC

Here's what Nicotero had to say about secrecy surrounding that final moment of The Walking Dead:

Well, we’ve gone to pretty significant lengths. That scene was shot on the backlot, because we didn’t want it to be shot out in public where people can climb trees, or for telephoto lenses, to capture something. It’s unfortunate, because those people, their job is to ruin the show, and our job is to preserve the experience of the show. So we do have to spend a lot of energy and a lot of effort preserving the experience of watching the show. It’s just the way the world is right now, and it’s an unfortunate thing.

Nicotero continued, lamenting the state of the current spoiler culture which necessitates the production going to such lengths:

There are a lot of TV shows that I love watching. I choose not to go online and read anything about them because I still enjoy the experience of learning about it for the first time. I don’t need spoilers. I’m a huge Game of Thrones fan, as you know, and every episode took me on this amazing great journey that I relished. I loved not knowing where I was being led but willingly going there. And people that want to put spoilers out there, they’re purposely trying to ruin that experience for people.

So I really still think that the majority of viewers feel the same way I do. They don’t want to know ahead, they don’t want to know what’s going to happen. You’ll have some news outlets that will find a kernel or a sort of nugget of information and run with it, and put it out there to be the first ones to report it, but it’s just about the experience of watching any movie. You don’t want to know how it ends. It’s about the journey, it’s not only about the ending.

Check out the new promo videos featuring Negan below:

[EMBED_TWITTER]https://twitter.com/WalkingDead_AMC/status/772464264267206656[/EMBED_TWITTER]

[EMBED_TWITTER]https://twitter.com/WalkingDead_AMC/status/772834194242179073[/EMBED_TWITTER]

For more on The Walking Dead, take a look at some of our recent coverage below: