With the original AMC series The Walking Dead coming to its conclusion in the finale of Season 11 on October 2, The Walking Dead Universe is branching off in a number of directions. At the 2022 San Diego Comic-Con TWD panel, writer and producer Scott M. Gimple reviewed some of the previously-mentioned spinoffs that are gearing up for release, as well as surprising attendees and TWD fans with the announcement of a Michonne (Danai Gurira) and Rick (Andrew Lincoln) miniseries. Perhaps one of the wildest offshoots, however, is the anthology series Tales of the Walking Dead. Ahead of the series premiere, showrunner Channing Powell gave fans a taste of what to expect when she dropped word of a shelved musical episode. Clearly, fans should expect the unexpected.
Within the TWD Universe, fans have a small handful of certainties. One is that there will be flesh-hungry Walkers, and two there will be character-driven plots with unknown fates. In Tales of the Walking Dead, the creators allowed themselves wiggle room to explore beyond the limitations of the gritty parent show. According to Powell, Tales nearly pulled a Buffy the Vampire Slayer admitting, “We did come up with a musical episode that, just for production reasons, was going to be a little bit too difficult to film.” While some die-hard fans may scoff at the idea of relinquishing their grit and Grimes, Gimple was never shy about what to expect from this anthology. During a Talking Dead episode in 2020, the Gimple said: “We may be doing different formats and possibility utilizing animation, music, different mediums. We want to surprise people every week with what they will be getting.”
The sky was always the limit, and fans could infer even from casting announcements that Tales would push boundaries TWD was never permitted to cross. Pulling in names like Terry Crews and Parker Posey, the tonal shift was evident from the beginning, and while the musical episode may have been tucked away for now, Powell did confirm the entire script was written. In fact, she opened up that DON’T DEAD OPEN INSIDE door of hope, adding, “Should we get a Season 2 or 3, I’m going to push for that one if I can. It lives in my heart and in my mind.”
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Powell discussed the freedom she had in writing an installment in the TWD Universe that didn’t adhere to a strict set of rules:
“I have written for The Walking Dead and Fear the Walking Dead for a very long time, so I’m very familiar with the tone. I was entrenched on it for a very long time. So being able to push the boundaries outside of it felt exciting and new to me. And also, I knew that there were going to be other spinoffs going into this one. And I thought if people really want traditional Walking Dead, they can either watch the flagship show, Fear the Walking Dead, or really any of the other spinoffs. But if they’re craving something new and something different, this was really the opportunity to pursue it.
So we tried as much as we could to push the boundaries of this world. And some of them are going to be not what the audience is expecting of The Walking Dead. And then there are hopefully a few that are a little more in tone and in line with what they would expect. So there’s a little bit for everybody.”
The series doesn’t require previous knowledge of the universe to be enjoyed, which Powell confirmed in an interview with Collider’s Steve Weintraub at SDCC. For the majority, excluding Samantha Morton‘s episode, none of the characters are recurring from any of the previous series, though for the longtime fans there are a few Easter Eggs scattered throughout. Even the timeline of each episode is unexpected, spanning from the beginning to nearly forty years post-apocalypse, and all across the US. With Tales fans will get to explore how different genres would tackle a zombie apocalypse.
Joining Crews, Morton and Posey in the survivor’s ensemble are Top Gun: Maverick‘s Danny Ramirez, The Boys‘ Jessie T. Usher, Olivia Munn, Jillian Bell, Anthony Edwards, Poppy Liu, Loan Chabanol, Embeth Davidtz, and Daniella Pineda.
Tales of the Walking Dead premieres on AMC and AMC+ on August 14. AMC+ will stream the first two episodes on the same night for subscribers and will begin streaming episodes a week early starting August 21. Check out our SDCC interview with the cast and crew below: