As reported by Comicbook.com, AMC has just released a first image for the latest Walking Dead sequel show featuring a grizzled and bloody-faced Rick Grimes, played by iconic British actor Andrew Lincoln (Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities, Love, Actually). The image was shared on Instagram by Danai Gurira (the Black Panther franchise, All Eyes on Me), who plays Rick’s wife, Michonne, the badass samurai-sword wielding survivor with a mysterious past.
Gurira even captioned the first look image with a cryptic, tongue-in-cheek question for audiences, “Have you seen this man?” while also adding the hasthag, “#Richonne.” The image of Rick’s piercing gaze and blood-splattered face can be seen just below.
As fans of the original The Walking Dead series are already aware, the last time viewers saw Rick Grimes was in the series finale, exhausted, shoeless, and donning a Civic Republic Military jacket. Grimes had just escaped the militaristic community after being trafficked and traded to them by the junkyard overlord Jadis, played by Pollyana McIntosh (Vikings: Valhalla, Darlin’), only to be recaptured by a CRM helicopter on the New Jersey side of the Delaware River.
As Comicbook.com writes, Scott M. Gimple (Fear the Walking Dead, Chase), who served as showrunner of The Walking Dead for seasons four through eight before becoming chief content officer of AMC’s Walking Dead, is now helming the new series (currently operating under the working title of Summit), which is now filming in Carlstadt, New Jersey, and Atlanta, Georgia. According to Comicbook.com, Gimple described the series as “an epic and insane love story” which will reunite Rick and Michonne after the pair was separated in The Walking Dead season nine episode, “What Comes Afrer.”
In a statement from Gimple commenting on the lovers’ reunion he said, “These are two people that have been separated for a very long time. They’ve lived whole other existences and they have to find themselves again, let alone each other. And it’s hopefully going to be mind-blowing. We see this incredible power couple, but we also see that Red Machete Rick. We see that Michonne who taught a thing or two to the Governor. It kind of goes coast to coast that way between the intimate and the epic and the insane.”
For more information on the new Walking Dead series, check out our other articles here and here.