


Daryl Dixon
AMC is trying to reassure investors that despite lower ad revenue and falling AMC+ subscribers, that the current actor and writers strikes will not disrupt its biggest franchise, The Walking Dead, now fractured into spin-offs.
“We greatly value the work of our creative partners and hope these disputes can be resolved as quickly and fairly as possible,” AMC CEO Kristin Dolan said. “In the short term, the reality for AMC Networks is that we have a pipeline of finished shows that will allow us to continue to serve our viewers across all of our platforms for the remainder of this year and well into 2024.”
What’s on deck for The Walking Dead that AMC thinks will last through the strike? We’re not talking about some sort of scabbing here, these are projects that are already in the can, they say. We have:
Dead City – The Negan/Maggie show which just finished its first season two weeks ago, a second greenlit already.
Daryl Dixon – The Daryl-based show set in France that will air a six-episode season starting on September 10. This too has a second season approved already.
Fear the Walking Dead – The long-running (too long) series will finally end with the second half of season 8 starting on October 22.
The Ones Who Live – The Rick and Michonne series does not have a date yet, but filming is over and it will air sometime early-mid 2024.
So yes, we have uh, four different Walking Dead show that will likely last through the entire strike. However, it’s hard to say that the current strikes will not affect season 2 of Dead City and Daryl Dixon, or whatever other shows they may have planned in the future.
Dead City
AMC continues to be in an extremely precarious position these days. It feels way too small to rely on its own streaming service, which has convoluted relationships with shows like Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul which are only sometimes on its app and not even all the episodes. So things like The Walking Dead, which it fully owns, and now its growing Anne Rice supernatural universe are its mainstays. Other recent offerings like Lucky Hank have not really taken off.
I’ve said this before, but it feels like AMC’s best bet may be to sell to one of the larger streamers at this point. They’ve had a deal with Netflix for a long while now for airing their shows after seasons end. But I don’t know how long relying on a combination of aging cable and a failing, convoluted streaming service can last. We are miles away from the peak of Walking Dead at 17 million viewers, with Dead City, which was even pretty good, maxing out at 700,000 by the same metrics (even if some portion of viewers have switch to digital). And that’s its biggest show!
We’ll see how Daryl Dixon, the finale of Fear and Rick and Michonne’s outing go, but AMC is in a tough spot right now, and they may have to make some major moves soon.
Follow me on Twitter, Threads, YouTube, and Instagram.
Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.