The upcoming spin-off from The Walking Dead featuring Negan and Maggie in Manhattan has been likened to a “madhouse” by Scott M. Gimple, the Chief Content Officer for AMC’s The Walking Dead Universe. Isle of the Dead – featuring Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Lauren Cohan, will take the two untrusting allies into a “crumbling and chaotic” New York City.
“It’s a madhouse, and [Maggie and Negan] enter it and get swept up into the madhouse,” Gimple says and adds that the spin-off will present the two characters with “a lot of conflict. There’s a lot of action. There are zip lines, the walkers are insane. The rats in that city are insane. Eli Jorné is the showrunner, and they’re doing incredible work over there right now.”
If the picture doesn’t sound gnarly and sinister enough – Dan McDermott, president of entertainment and AMC Studios for AMC Networks – sells the spin-off further. Fair to say, things are looking pretty bleak in the concrete jungle. Speaking on Variety’s Strictly Business podcast, he revealed that the series would “take place on the island of Manhattan, which was left to the walkers 12 years ago when they overran Manhattan. The government decided to blow all the bridges and tunnels and just leave the island to the walkers.”
Negan and Maggie will contend with a herd of one million walkers and encounter a faction of survivors who travel above the streets of Manhattan via zip lines. Isle of the Dead will debut on AMC and AMC Plus sometime in 2023 – and run for six episodes. Gaius Charles Željko Ivanek, Jonathan Higginbotham, and Mahina Napoleon join the cast.
In June, Jeffrey Dean Morgan – who has portrayed Negan since the Season 6 finale in 2016 – confirmed that he had read scripts for the spin-off, teasing fans that they would “blow your minds.”
