‘The Walking Dead’: Norman Reedus Plots New AMC Show as Zombie Series Winds Down

The Walking Dead star Norman Reedus is plotting his next big move. Variety reports that Reedus and his production company, bigbaldhead, are developing Edward Gorey’s book, Neglected Murderesses, for AMC. According to Variety, this is the first time that the Gorey estate has allowed any of his work to be adapted. Additionally, the Edward Gorey Charitable Trust announced that all profits earned from the series would be donated to animal welfare groups, including The Elephant Sanctuary, The International Fund for Animal Welfare, and The National Marine Life Center, as a tribute to his love of animals.

A black comedy, Neglected Murderesses, follows twelve female killers who all have very unique ways of dispatching their victims. Variety revealed a few: Nurse J. Rosebeetle, “who tilted her employer out of a wheelchair and over a cliff at Sludgemouth in 1898,” Mrs. Fledaway, who “laced her husband’s tea with atropine in the spring of 1903,” and Miss Q. P. Urkheimer, who “brained her fiancé after failing to pick up an easy spare at Glover’s Lanes.”

No news on whether Reedus will appear in the show, but he will be serving as executive producer. Bigbaldhead recently entered into a first-look deal with AMC Studios, which is one of many projects on the docket.

Reedus is definitely sowing seeds for a career after The Walking Dead, which is coming to an end in 2022 after 11 seasons. However, Reedus and co-star Melissa McBride will headline one of two planned spinoffs, so it’s not like fan-favorite Daryl will be leaving zombies behind anytime soon. Still, Reedus feels bittersweet about the end of The Walking Dead.

“Part of me is ready for a spin-off and ready for the excitement of what that will be and then another part of me is sort of in denial,” he said to the Evening Express. “I have been doing this for a while and it has become such a big part of my life, so it doesn’t really seem real.”

Reedus explained to Entertainment Weekly that the show will continue but will tonally be quite different. “I didn’t know the flagship show would end,” Reedus said. “The whole thing was we would take off and we’d come back and check-in and we would take off. So I didn’t know that was going to happen. And to be honest, I was hoping that would never happen because, you know, that’s the mothership. I’m scared to leave the mothership. That’s scary new ground. I mean, I’m excited for the spin-off and I’m excited for the type of show it will be, but I didn’t see that coming that. That kind of came out of nowhere.” Still, Carol and Daryl have been beloved characters since the beginning of the show, so fans are likely to follow them anywhere, even if it means the end of “the mothership.”