Co-created by Scott M. Gimple and showrunner Matt Negrete, the AMC series The Walking Dead: World Beyond follows the first generation raised in the civilization of the post-apocalyptic world of zombies. When sisters Iris (Aliyah Royale) and Hope (Alexa Mansour) leave their life of safety and comfort behind to venture out into the unknown, they end up on a dangerous journey that will challenge them in every way imaginable.
During this 1-on-1 phone interview with Collider, Scott M. Gimple, chief content officer of The Walking Dead franchise, talked about his own journey within this universe, why they wanted to tell the story of World Beyond, whether the series could continue beyond the two seasons that have been announced, centering the story around sisters, and what he hopes audiences will take from the first season. He also talked about the impending end of the flagship series, the Daryl (Norman Reedus) and Carol (Melissa McBride) spin-off, the upcoming Walking Dead movie with Andrew Lincoln, whether there will be more with Michonne (Danai Gurira), and the anthology Tales of the Walking Dead.
Collider: You joined the original series as a producer and writer in Season 2, by Season 4, you became the showrunner and did that through Season 8, and you also became an executive producer on Fear the Walking Dead. Now, you’re the chief content officer for the franchise. How has your evolution alongside the evolution of this universe felt?
SCOTT M. GIMPLE: It’s felt a little bit like growing up. I watched the first season as a fan and I enjoyed it. I watched it live. It was a strange thing to get on a show that you love because you read the comic and you’re watching the show. I remember seeing the poster for it. I think I saw it out in the world, and not on the internet, and I was so psyched. And then, to get on the show and to be able to write and produced, it was strange to be like, “Oh, damn, I’m sitting here talking to Rick Grimes on set and I have to be professional.” And then, coming up and really learning how to make the show and really enjoying that process and really seeing the challenges of that process, the job gets bigger and bigger. When I started the fifth season showrunning, I really did believe that there was a lot more potential to the universe, to be more and do more, from all of the conversations we would have in the writers’ room or from fans asking questions about the world. Around that time, I went to AMC with the idea of telling more stories in different ways.
What was it about World Beyond, specifically? Why was two seasons the right length for this story, and why was this the right story for right now? How did all of that evolve?
GIMPLE: As we were developing this mythology that we’ve seen throughout all of the series, we’ve seen little hints of this other mythology happening. There was another story that I was thinking about and I was talking to Matt [Negrete] about it. It was really about the characters and it was mixing it into that mythology that we were developing anyway. It just turned out to be a very cool set of ingredients that, thrown all together, we got really excited about.
It’s interesting to see this from the perspective of a generation that doesn’t really even remember life before. How do you feel that really gives a different sense and perspective to this world?
GIMPLE: We’ve only touched upon it. Judith is so young that she missed the transition entirely but these kids only have hints of what the world was before and they most importantly carry the trauma of the transition between the two worlds, going from pre to post apocalyptic. The trauma, in some ways, sets them all on their course. They’ve been in this incredible place of safety that still has allowed them to know what the world is like outside of their walls. The cool thing about stories, in general, is transformation and going through an incredible journey, whether you are transformed or not. With these kids, they’re leaving this place of safety and going into the unknown, and in some ways going into things that they do know they will face. They’re also young and at a point of transformation in their lives. Seeing who they will become is the whole point of it. These just are such heightened circumstances.
It certainly seems like not only will the audience learn about these characters but these characters are going to learn a lot about themselves on this journey.
GIMPLE: Exactly. Bilbo left Hobbiton and he was not one to travel or do much but he discovered that there’s a whole world out there and maybe he does have a taste for that. These kids are gonna go through changes regardless because of how old they are but they make this choice to face their lives in a very different way than they would have had to. That, in and of itself, just starts them on this path of rapid change.
You’ve announced the impending end of the original series. How long have you been thinking about when the right time would be to end that flagship series? Is it something that you’ve been having conversations about for awhile now?
GIMPLE: It’s certainly been something that we’ve talked about. It just seems that there’s gonna be more story to tell in perpetuity. Robert Kirkman pitched The Walking Dead comic as the zombie movie that never ends, and I wanted to fulfill that. I wanted to keep telling the story in some way, whether it be on the show or whether it be through things like Daryl and Carol or Tales of the Walking Dead or World Beyond. I wanna keep telling this story of this world. I’d love to do more with The Walking Dead characters beyond Daryl and Carol. I’m hoping Tales of the Walking Dead could be an avenue for that. Tales of the Walking Dead is gonna tell stories from all around The Walking Dead universe, and a lot of stories that have nothing to do with any of the current stories in The Walking Dead universe. I don’t want the zombie movie to end.
Was doing a spin-off for Daryl and Carol a no-brainer? Once you knew that the original series would come to an end, was there just no way that you were not gonna do that?
GIMPLE: That very much came out of conversations with (The Walking Dead showrunner) Angela [Kang]. We knew the story was going to continue somehow. We also knew that we needed to do it new and very different ways. It just came together that way. It felt right and we were really excited about the ideas we have around that, which will be with these classic characters but it’s gonna be a very new and a very different kind of story.
What was the original plan for Daryl and Carol, before the pandemic affected things?
GIMPLE: We’re following the same general plan but movies take a little longer and we’re playing with it in all sorts of directions. And then, the pandemic happened, which gave us the opportunity or the necessity to do that. We’re still doing that. Andy is super involved. Robert is super involved. It really is proceeding. It’s just that current circumstances have given us a little extra time that we seem to need anyways. We really want to do it right.
How far along had you been with the script and finding a director? Were those things still a ways off? Are they any closer now?
GIMPLE: We’ve been working on the script and playing around with different aspects of it but it’s still fairly early in there.
You’ve been talking since 2018 about what that film could explore and how it could explore the story of where Rick was taken. How hard is it to know where a story is going to be going but also know that you’re going to have to wait awhile to tell the story that you want to tell?
GIMPLE: It’s tricky but having worked on the show for as long as we have, you have your plan and you have your direction and things will happen that adjust it, whether it’s schedules or circumstance, or whether there are aspects of the story that you suddenly want to emphasize or de-emphasize, or there are characters that pop. There are a lot of variables to it but you stay with your story and you adjust it. A lot of times, you have really incredible discoveries along the way. Sometimes some of that story winds up in other places. When you have as big a universe as this, there are aspects of the story where you might be going in one direction with one character or even one show, and aspects of it suddenly seem like some of that maybe goes into another character on another show. You’re still following that grand vision of the story but you might divvy it up a little differently, at the end of the day, or you might wind up seeing it exactly through. It really is bobbing and weaving between circumstance, schedule and inspiration. Generally, it’s a good thing when you have as many different stories to fuel and feed.
Do you think that we could ever see a Walking Dead show or a movie that’s set significantly in the future of the timeline? Is that something that you’d be interested in exploring?
GIMPLE: Oh, absolutely. There are aspects of Tales of the Walking Dead that will be playing with the timeline. Within the comic, Robert has explored the “future,” as it pertains to the current timeline on the show and that is a huge inspiration for projects in the future and for the show itself.
Do you feel like we could see Michonne pop up again in the movies or on a spinoff series of her own?
GIMPLE: Absolutely. You’ll be seeing Michonne, yeah. We’re going to be telling stories with Michonne again. The end of her on the series was, in many ways, the start of the story.
Because this is such a huge universe, do you have to keep a giant chart of where characters are shifting around and where they could go next, even if they’re not on the show they started on? Is it one giant puzzle, at this point?
GIMPLE: It is and it is. The shows are very separate, in many ways – how they’re run and how they need to be produced. We help each other out, all the time. I use the royal we because I work on all of them but everybody has their stories organized into the future. I and others try to make sure that we seize upon opportunities where they can touch each other and make sure that they’re not repeating each other, and then how they work into the future. We’re paying attention to that a lot. But there is no crazy Charlie Day clue wall. We have a pretty good idea of what’s up.
Is World Beyond pretty well set at a two-season series, or is it a series that has room to grow beyond that, if the story dictates that’s where it goes?
GIMPLE: One way or another, I think it does have room to go beyond those two years, in as much as it could be just in different ways. I think Tales of the Walking Dead is gonna continue the story for some characters throughout the universe but it’s also gonna look back at characters. There are things in World Beyond that I’d love to explore more, and that might be through Tales of the Walking Dead or other ways.
What do you hope audiences take from the first season of World Beyond? How much resolution will they have to questions that are already arising and how much are you also setting up for where the next season would go?
GIMPLE: There’s a lot of resolution and a lot of revelation. There are a lot of discoveries that are made along the way that affect everything. A big part of the end of this first season is seeing who these characters are becoming. They’re starting in a very safe situation and they’re starting in rules, to a degree. Those rules are gonna change drastically, by the end of the season. I think that’s one of the great joys of that series. We’ll see who they are, by the end of the first season, and how it affects how they deal with the discoveries that they make, which informs the next year.
You’re telling the story of two sisters who are part of the same family but who have had very different experiences within that family. What did you find so interesting about those two characters to center the story around?
GIMPLE: The idea of the closeness of these sisters, first and foremost. When I say these sisters, I mean these very different sisters. It’s a very interesting relationship that we got excited about. There are a lot of stories about dysfunction and conflict but this is a story about two sisters who couldn’t be more different and love each other very much. They have each other’s backs but it’s the world that will challenge that. It’s situations they find themselves in that will challenge that love and togetherness. It really felt cool to have these very different characters push each other, make up for each other’s failings, pool their strengths, and explore the world in different ways through their eyes because they’re so different but see them, at the end of the day, like it’s both of them against the world. That seems super cool.
That’s one of the things that definitely keeps people coming back to The Walking Dead universe, in general. As cool as the show is and as fun as it is to see the zombies and the zombie killings, at its heart, it’s always about family, whether it’s blood family or family that you find along the way. That’s clearly something that draws audiences back to this universe.
GIMPLE: And that’s what we have here. They aren’t blood family but they are legally family. They’re legally sisters. But beyond that, they also create this family along the way, of people that are super different from them. None of the quartet, or even the sextet, if you include Huck and Felix, are all super different people but they wind up on the same page and in the same situation. I do think that’s something that people like. We’re all facing that right now. The whole world is in something that is the same. Some people have to deal with some unthinkable aspects of it but right now, we’re all in this together. Seeing people like that getting through, seems like a good story to tell nowadays. It’s a good story to tell, in general.
The Walking Dead: World Beyond airs on Sunday nights on AMC.
Christina Radish is a Senior Reporter of Film, TV, and Theme Parks for Collider. You can follow her on Twitter @ChristinaRadish.
