TV
“Fear the Walking Dead” Shut Down Over Coronavirus Fears; “The Walking Dead” Delayed
The scary parallel between the zombie subgenre and the Coronavirus comes full circle with news that AMC is shutting down production on “Fear the Walking Dead” and delaying the 11th season of “The Walking Dead”.
Deadline reports the news, noting that “Fear the Walking Dead” is currently in production and already set for a hiatus next week. The Colman Domingo-starring spinoff will halt for another three weeks in the abundance of caution that has spread across the whole small-screen industry over the past 48 hours.
AMC is aiming to pick up around the week of April 13.
In addition, pre-production on Season 11 of the Georgia-filmed “The Walking Dead” will also get pushed in the name of health safety, adds the site. AMC says “TWD” will give actual physical production on the show a shove of about three to four weeks down the calendar. The writers’ room on the Angela Kang-showrun series will remain open, with scribes working remotely on the upcoming season.
Coronavirus also forced Netflix to suspend production on “Stranger Things”.
In the meantime, AMC is hoping to breathe new life into the world of “The Walking Dead” with spinoff series “The Walking Dead: World Beyond” this year, centered on two young female protagonists and telling the story of the first generation to come-of-age in the apocalypse.
The 10-episode first season of the series will premiere Sunday, April 12, 2020, at 10pm EST. Subsequent episodes will then air Sunday nights at 9:00 p.m. EST.
Blade Runner is headed to the small screen in Prime Video’s upcoming Blade Runner 2099, set 50 years after Denis Villeneuve’s Blade Runner 2049, in a world where replicants have emerged on top after an uprising.
Humans are no longer in power.
At the forefront of the new series are stars Michelle Yeoh (Everything Everywhere All At Once) and Hunter Schafer (Cuckoo), and EW has shared the first images of their characters.
Yeoh stars as a replicant Blade Runner named Olwen, facing the final days of her life. It’s a twist on the Roy Batty story from the first film; here, that story will be told from the replicant’s perspective.
Opposite her is Schafer as Olwen’s partner, Cora, a human fugitive pretending to be a replicant. Olwen and Cora will be working together to investigate missing rogue replicants.
Blade Runner 2099 comes from Alcon Entertainment, Scott Free, and Amazon Studios. Silka Luisa (“Shining Girls”) is writing, showrunning, and executive producing.
Jonathan van Tulleken (“Shōgun”) will direct and executive produce the first two episodes.
Luisa tells EW that Ridley Scott’s seminal sci-fi noir acts as the series’ North Star, but it’ll forge its own identity: “We leaned into sunshine noir. You’re still very much in the Blade Runner world, but the show is about a birth. It’s about a birth of a city. It’s about a birth of a replicant era. These characters are discovering who they really are. And so the climate is hot, it’s sticky, it’s sunny. We’re on the coast a lot. We’re in Santa Monica a lot. So it’s like you’re seeing Ridley’s texture, but you’re seeing it in the sunshine noir filter.”
The showrunner adds, “The show is really imagining what comes after us, and what does it mean to be human in a world where humanity is no longer relevant?“
Dimitri Abold (The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes), Lewis Gribben (Somewhere Boy), Katelyn Rose Downey (The Nun II), and Daniel Rigby (Renegade Nell) also star in the upcoming series. Johnny Harris (A Gentleman in Moscow), Amy Lennox (Only Child), Sheila Atim (The Woman King), and Matthew Needham (House of the Dragon) join as recurring guest stars.
Blade Runner 2099 is expected to premiere later this year, so stay tuned.
Credit: Clay Enos/Prime Video
Credit: Clay Enos/Prime Video
Credit: Clay Enos/Prime Video
Credit: Clay Enos/Prime Video
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