On Saturday, AMC held its “The Walking Dead” panel as part of San Diego Comic-Con’s virtual event Comic-Con@Home. The panel, moderated by “Talking Dead” host Chris Hardwick, featured chief content officer of “The Walking Dead Universe” Scott M. Gimple, showrunner Angela Kang, and cast members Norman Reedus, Melissa McBride, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Lauren Cohan, Christian Serratos, Josh McDermitt, Khary Payton, Eleanor Matsuura, and Michael James Shaw. The panel kicked off with the premiere of the season 11 trailer, followed by a moderated Q&A discussion about filming the final season of the ground-breaking series.
Last year, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, “The Walking Dead” fans were treated to a special extended tenth season. The six additional episodes were more intimate and focused on individual character stories more than fans were used to. However, fans can expect to see “The Walking Dead” they had come to love when the series returns this August.
Promising to “go out with a bang,” showrunner Angela Kang says, “We’re back to our big, scope-y, massive, extravaganzas with lots of great character interactions between the people we love. But, you know, also like our stunts and scares and all of that fun stuff.” Season 11 promises to go in hard with new stories and new characters, with Scott Gimple promising fans “an epic extended goodbye.”
And speaking of new characters, we were introduced to Michael James Shaw’s Mercer earlier this year when AMC released its teaser for the first part of season 11 earlier this month. The character, who also appears in “The Walking Dead” comic series, is the leader of the soldiers of The Commonwealth, a group of militiamen who made their first appearance in the extended tenth season of the show. During Saturday’s panel, Kang also shared that other comic book favorites would be joining the series, including the characters Pamela Milton, who will be played by Laila Robins, and Lance Hornsby, who will be played by Josh Hamilton. The two actors will also be joined by Margot Bingham and Richie Coster, though what characters they would play was not revealed.
In the comic series, Milton is the governor of the Ohio network of settlements that are part of the Commonwealth, while Hornsby is the prideful Commonwealth bookkeeper.
The final season of “The Walking Dead” will be broken up into three eight-episode parts. The first eight will kick off in August, with the final two set to premiere sometime in 2022. “The Walking Dead” will return on Sunday, August 22 at 9 PM ET/8 PM CT. However, fans will be able to watch episodes a week early via AMC+.
