Tales of the Walking Dead to premiere Summer 2022

AMC announced today that the highly anticipated new series Tales of the Walking Dead will premiere on AMC+ and AMC in summer 2022. Longtime TWD writer and producer Channing Powell will serve as the showrunner, working closely with chief content officer Scott M. Gimple.

The episodic anthology series will initially consist of six hour long standalone episodes focusing on new and established characters in The Walking Dead Universe. Production is set to begin in early 2022, with a target air date of summer 2022.

What is Tales of the Walking Dead?

“This series, more than any other in The Walking Dead Universe, runs on new voices, perspectives and ideas – bringing to life stories unlike any we’ve told before,” Gimple said in a statement. “I’m thrilled to be Channing’s consigliere, helping in every way I can to make those new visions real for the best fans in TV.”

Powell, whose writing credits on The Walking Dead include “Look at the Flowers”, “Slabtown” and “Go Getters” and on Fear the Walking Dead include “Mother” and “The Holding”, is first and foremost a fan of the series. “I started as a fan of The Walking Dead and ended up as a showrunner of what will hopefully become one of its most unique spin-offs,” she said. “That’s nuts and I’m so grateful to AMC and Scott for supporting me and my writers while we pushed, pulled and poked at the boundaries to bring you something new and unexpected, while hopefully still tending to what core audiences loved so much about the flagship show.”

Tales of the Walking Dead was one of the two spinoffs announced by AMC when The Walking Dead’s final season was announced. This series is intriguing because it can bring back anyone from the TWD Universe and explore their stories while also bringing new characters to the fore. In other words, even if someone dies on the show and becomes a walker, there’s still the possibility of a return.

TWD fans have openly speculated about which characters could and show return to this new series as soon as it was announced, with Michael Cudlitz’s Abraham Ford as one of the clear frontrunners. Abe has a fascinating story and his time on the show ended far too soon when he succumbed to Negan’s bat, Lucille, in the season 7 premiere.

Dan McDermott, president of original programming for AMC Networks and AMC Studios, understands how this new series could ignite current fans and newcomers alike. “We see so much potential for a wide range of rich and compelling storytelling in this world,” he said, “and the episodic anthology format of Tales of the Walking Dead will give us the flexibility to entertain existing fans and also offer an entry point for new viewers, especially on streaming platforms. We have seen the appeal of this format in television classics like The Twilight Zone and, more recently, Black Mirror, and are excited to engage with fans in this new way, against the backdrop of this very unique and engrossing world.”

It’s an exciting time to be a TWD fan, with The Walking Dead in its supersized final season, Fear the Walking Dead in season 7 and the limited series TWD: World Beyond in its second and final season. There is also a Carol and Daryl spinoff planned, along with the Rick Grimes movies that will reveal – finally – what happened to the beloved patriarch of the show.