‘Walking Dead: Ones Who Live’ Stars Danai Gurira, Andrew Lincoln Tease Return to Zombie Franchise

variety.com:

Joe Otterson TV Reporter For the first time since 2018, Rick Grimes and Michonne will be back together onscreen. “The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live” is now the seventh series in the zombie survival franchise overall and the third spinoff to feature main characters from the mothership show after “The Walking Dead: Dead City” and “The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon.” The show was originally planned as a series of movies, which were announced as soon as Rick Grimes actor Andrew Lincoln departed the main show in 2018.

According to Lincoln, Michonne actress Danai Gurira, and “The Walking Dead” chief content officer Scott Gimple, the conversations around how to bring the two characters back together began as soon as they were separated. “When Andy was leaving the mothership, his idea was to carry on the story in a different form,” Gurira said. “And then he’d said to me, ‘I want you to be a part of that.’ So when I left the mothership, that was contracted into what I was going to do next.” In the original plan, Lincoln would have starred in the first film solo, with Gurira appearing at the end in a cameo, setting up the remaining films.

But, as Gimple put it, “possibilities and probabilities kept changing.” That included working around Gurira’s packed schedule, taken up in no small part by her commitments to the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

All three remained in close contact in the intervening years to hash out the creative of what would become “The Ones Who Live.” Thus, Gimple, Lincoln, and Gurira are all credited as co-creators on the new series.