Though The Walking Dead co-creator Robert Kirkman has expressed his interest in creating a “faithful” animated adaptation of the hit series, he shared the one reason why the project is still not happening.
“I’d love to see it happen someday, but I don’t think it’ll be possible until I get the rights back from AMC,” Kirkman said in response to a fan question in the Letter Hacks column of The Walking Dead Deluxe #85 (via ComicBook).
Moreover, Skybound’s The Walking Dead editor Amanda LaFranco added that “there’s definitely been developments over the years,” and that there are still plenty of fans “that would very much love to make [it] happen.”
AMC obtained the rights to the graphic novel back in 2009, and the series premiered in 2010. Since then, the series — which aired on the network for 11 seasons, from 2010 to 2022 — has become one of AMC’s most successful series to date.
Based on the comic book series of the same name by Kirkman, Tony Moore, and Charlie Adlard, the television series follows a group of survivors during the zombie apocalypse.
The series starred Andrew Lincoln as Rick Grimes, Norman Reedus as Daryl Dixon, Danai Gurira as Michonne Hawthorne, Melissa McBride as Carol Peletier, Jeffrey Dean Morgan as Negan Smith, Lauren Cohan as Maggie Greene, Steven Yeun as Glenn Rhee, and more.
The Walking Dead saga is far from dead
While an animated series is still out of the picture, with the original series and its spin-offs (Fear the Walking Dead and The Walking Dead: World Beyond) having already ended, AMC has continued to explore the TWD tale with new spin-offs focusing on fan-favorite characters, including The Walking Dead: Dead City, The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon, and The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live.
