A new teaser from The Walking Dead : Dead City reveals images of the series which will see the return of Negan and Maggie.
When it started in 2010, The Walking Dead was queen of a genre in great shape at the turn of the decade, from I’m a legend To Welcome to Zombieland Passing by World War Z. The series was an unprecedented success for AMC: the first episode of season 5 had a record 17 million viewers, and from season 5 to season 7, all episodes had more than 10 million viewers on evening of their broadcast. But around season 8, in 2017, the show’s viewership began to seriously decline. The final episode of the series, in 2022, had only 1.4 million viewers.
Post-apocalyptic zombie cinema seemed to be on its last legs as a whole along with the series. But in recent years, we have seen some fine performances of the genre: Zack Snyder’s film, Army of the Dead, is one of the most viewed films on Netflix, and the series event of this beginning of the year 2023 is The Last of Us, which will be entitled to several new seasons. So, invigorated by these successes, The Walking Dead doesn’t seem ready to stop. Less than a year after the end of the original series, we are about to discover The Walking Dead : Dead City, the continuation of the adventures of the characters Negan and Maggie, who reveal themselves in a new teaser.
This teaser was discreetly unveiled at the end of February 2023, but was released with great fanfare at the end of March during the WonderCon organized by the AMC channel. At the convention, he was accompanied by promotional interviews with stars Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Lauren Cohan. The two actors insisted in particular on the change of scenery: while the majority of the original series took place in the forests in the south-east of the United States, Dead City refers to New York City. Thus, the series will perhaps be able to differentiate itself from its elder thanks to a claustrophobic atmosphere induced by the streets of the metropolis and its skyscrapers which block the horizon.
The plot will take place two years after the end of the main series. To hope to save his son Hershel, captured by new antagonists, Maggie will have to forge an uneasy alliance with Negan, the man who took her husband from her. Indeed, from his first appearance, Negan had killed Glenn with a bat, in the final episode of season 6. In season 11, the young Hershel had almost shot Negan to avenge the death of his father. The fascinating relationship between these three characters will therefore be at the heart of this new season.
On the other hand, when it comes to staging, these images are not particularly appealing : we stay on the very classic style of the original series, without any particular artistic bias. Nothing very innovative for the franchise therefore, and that worries us, because Dead City is just one of many future series announced by AMC. The broadcast of the last season of Fear the Walking Dead will begin in May 2023, and a season 2 of the anthology Tales of the Walking Dead could well see the light of day. Finally, 2024 should see the release of two mini-series, dedicated respectively to Daryl Dixon and Rick Grimes. Suffice to say that AMC intends to exploit one of its most lucrative franchises to the end.
We therefore hope that the showrunners, screenwriters and directors will be able to show originality in reinventing this franchise which no longer really excites the crowds: when will this story really end? At any rate, the first episode of The Walking Dead : Dead City airs June 18, 2023 on AMC and AMC+. We do not yet know on which platform this season 1 will be available in France.
