"The Walking Dead" is easily the most popular show on television, routinely pulling in an average of 16 or so million weekly viewers. This makes it AMC's primary cash cow and, as a result, it's no surprise that the network has double dipped, introducing fans to "Fear The Walking Dead" last summer, which averaged an impressive 11 million viewers in its own right.
But could a third "Walking Dead" series survive on AMC?
"The answer is we are open to ideas that feel organic to the creators in whom we've put our trust," AMC network president Charlie Collier said in a recent interview with Vulture. "So if Robert [Kirkman] had a world he wanted to explore, you can bet that we are not just leaning into that conversation, but we're actively engaging it."
Would a third series be overkill? Audiences are already bombarded with 16 episodes of "The Walking Dead" throughout the fall and winter. "Fear The Walking Dead" will debut a second season sometime during the spring or summer, giving the "Dead" universe a virtual monopoly on the year-round TV schedule. Yet AMC programming boss Joel Stillerman believes that Kirkman's universe allows for countless story-telling possibilities.
"If you ask Robert what his motivations were for writing The Walking Dead, he would say, 'I loved zombie movies, but I just felt like the worst part of them was always the ending. You always had to manufacture some ending.' So he set out to write this totally open-ended story, and the proof of that is in how vibrant the comics are."
Technically speaking, we could be plopped down into any given timeline within the zombie universe. "Fear The Walking Dead" is covering the initial early stages of the zombie outbreak while "The Walking Dead" positions itself in more of a present day setting. Could a third "Dead" show take a trip into the future and explore what has become of humanity? Could they head overseas and examine how other countries fared? Admittedly, there are a lot of avenues to travel down.
But as of now, there are no immediate plans for yet another show in this world.
"Right now we're not in that conversation, and there's nothing to report at all," Collier said. "I'm a huge believer in Robert and the executive producers of these shows. We wanted to create a place where they would bring us their creative dreams and bring us their passion projects. If Robert had another one, we would absolutely engage. This is a world that is rich enough to handle it. Right now we're just focused on these two."
