It’s fair to say that Robert Kirkman is to The Walking Dead what George R.R. Martin is to Game of Thrones – without them, neither property would exist in its current form, and it seems Kirkman is going one step further to exert his influence on the planned Rick Grimes movie trilogy in development at AMC.
Aside from a possible theatrical release for Rick’s ultimate swan song, there are precious few details available for AMC’s master plan, though fans can continue to enjoy The Walking Dead‘s ninth season, safe in the knowledge that the show’s movie spinoffs are in safe hands.
Why, you ask? Because according to Scott Gimple, series creator and executive producer Robert Kirkman will be “heavily involved” in Rick Grimes’ movie trilogy, which, frankly, is music to our ears. Gimple made the comments during an interview with The New York Times (h/t ComicBook.com), though refrained from sharing too much, too soon.
Overall, though, it appears as though AMC and Andrew Lincoln are hoping to double down on a Western theme for Rick’s solo outing in that Lincoln previously compared his grizzled survivor to the lone gunslinger archetype associated with Clint Eastwood.
There’s something about Eastwood, who he is as a gunslinger, as an iconic kind of American hero, rolling around in pig swill at the beginning of the movie. You know what he’s capable of, and I thought the idea of a character that the audience knows and has lived with — and who has oscillated between psycho and father for nine years — to start in a completely different place, was a really interesting, crazy place to begin. I want to know why we keep seeing helicopters flying around. What’s going on? What have the grown-ups been doing while we’ve been scrambling around in the dirt?
It’s certainly an interesting angle to take, as Lincoln’s leader has always been defined by the people around him. So what happens when he’s dumped into the midst of a strange new group? That’s a question The Walking Dead movies will hope to answer when they arrive at some point in 2019.