The Executive Producer of The Walking Dead, Greg Nicotero, has been interviewed for Variety and has been talking about some of the big things we can expect to see in Season 7 of AMC’s The Walking Dead. Everyone who is a fan of the show has been debating who exactly will feel the wrath of Lucile, but as fans of the comics will be quick to tell you, that fate fell to the much loved Glenn. However as we all know, the show and the books don’t exactly marry up properly.
Clearly this interview was never going to reveal who falls to Negan’s barbed wire baseball bat, but Nicotero does have a way of answering the most often asked question of him – “Who does Negan kill?”
“A bunch of people have come up to me saying “I know you’re not going to tell me, but it would be really great if you just let me know who it is.” When we were on set we did one take where Jeffrey hit me in the head with the baseball bat, so when people ask me who Negan killed I say me. I have video on my phone of me having my head bashed in by Negan.”
However with the wait almost over, Nicotero also mentions how he and the actors are excited for the season to be underway again, mainly so that he can finally talk properly about what’s going on.
“I’m excited for the show to come back because it feels like this hiatus has been longer than any other. We’ve done our best to preserve the integrity of the episode and the show. It’s difficult to do press when you know you can’t really say much. I’ve been talking to the actors the past couple of days and we’re just excited for it to finally be out there.”
Clearly, a big part of each new season of The Walking Dead is whether or not the fans of the show will be impressed after months of build up and mass anticipation. The advice from Nicotero? Bring your tissues…
“I would probably say that people will be sad, I recommend watching the episode with lots of Kleenex, and there will be a lot of questions and a lot of whys and “What’s going to happen next?” and “How could you?” but that’s attributed to us spending seven years creating characters that people care about.”
The show itself is growing exponentially and by that I don’t just mean fan-base and viewer figures, I mean the world within The Walking Dead is not as small as it has been in the past. With that, Morgan and Carol will be helping to expand that world to another new (relatively speaking) “Safe-Zone”.
“I was excited that Morgan and Carol weren’t in the line-up. Seeing these two people dealing with this whole new-found community, and seeing how Morgan deals with what he’s done and how Carol deals with it, is a very good relief from the world that we ended up in last season. Carol and Morgan provide the introduction to the Kingdom for us, and we’ve spent a lot of effort making sure that we are doing justice to create a larger world. We have the Kingdom, we have Alexandria, we have the Hilltop, we have Negan’s compound the Sanctuary, so we have a lot of different flavors to explore.”
The interview ended with talk of one of the new characters to come into the show, a favorite from the comics – the tiger owning Ezekiel (played by Khary Payton).
“It was great (adapting Ezekiel for TV from the comics). It’s such a contrast to the other worlds that we’ve experienced, to see a guy like Ezekiel who basically stepped into this role out of necessity. He’s a very different leader than Gregory or Rick or Negan, and I think that’s tremendously interesting. He’s in a community that has actually been doing pretty well.”
The Walking Dead Season 7 starts again on Sunday October 23, on AMC. Are you looking forward to the new season? Who do you think will be killed off in what’s sure to be an explosive start to the season? Let us know in the comments below, the RGM Forums or on Twitter.
