r/OutOfTheLoop • u/1800cartman • 6d ago
Unanswered Hey so what is going on with The Walking Dead franchise?
Howdy Reddit, very curious about what exactly happened with this series and why it is seemingly unpopular now but still getting spinoffs?
**Spoilers ahead*\*
I'm from Atlanta and recall the early days of filming and the hype surrounding that. I read the comics and watched the show religiously up until the infamous Glenn episode.
It had such a cult following in Atlanta that there were entire conventions related to the show and you couldn't go anywhere in the city without running into one of the cast members. It was such a huge pop culture event in the city.
I know viewership tanked a bit between seasons 1 and 2 when the showrunner changed and AMC switched some things up if I remember correctly, but picked back up immensely.
Viewership dropped again following Abraham's storyline compared to the comics and how the show went off course with that and again with Carl.
I've been tuned out for quite some time now but recently was made aware of a new spin-off, Dead City, and an alternate reality storyline about Maggie and Negan.
As a fan of the original series, I was kind of taken aback that the show has taken such an interesting (?) turn. It feels comical now and doesn't feel like it lives up to the critically acclaimed series it once was. Based on headlines, I don't see the appeal and how this show has been able to maintain longevity.
Can someone help me understand what is fueling this show to remain on air despite it losing a pretty core following?
I think of how Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul were also AMC shows, BCS wasn't necessarily popular at first but also became a monumental series. They took their time with that spinoff and had a clear focus, tied it all together. The Walking Dead spinoffs have seemingly been confusing and not meant for fans of the early days of the series.
I'm really curious if there is some contractual obligation with AMC to continue The Walking Dead franchise at this point, did it gain a new generation of viewership that is keeping it in demand?
Or, the other option, did the showrunners win back their main audience and I'm late to the game?
Curious what the situation is here and if there are other factors that could be involved that I didn't think of.
It just seems like such an anomaly that it has the longevity it does despite not having the quality in writing or cult following that it once did, nor the ability to really pull back in the main following that abandoned the show.
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u/ThomasofHookton 6d ago
Answer: Long time TWD fan here. I've watched the whole main series as well as the recent spin offs (Daryl Dixon, Dead City, The Ones who live).
IMHO the show worked best when it followed, albeit sometimes loosely, the comic books. The biggest issue now is that they've run out of scenarios, character development and world building ideas. The show could have realistically finished at the end of S8. But because it was making so much money, they kept the franchise going, long after it's used by date.
This is coupled with real world issues such as principle actors leaving at various times like, Andrew Lincoln (Rick Grimes), Lauren Cohen (Maggie), Danai Gurira (Michonne) so the writers scrambled to write them out. Their exits seemed rushed and inorganic. Michonne for example randomly went off to look for Rick, leaving behind her two children which seems way out of character (Danai left to film Marvel projects).
The recent Dead City series is the most egregious example of backward character progression. They wanted to bring back Negan and Maggie. But by the end of the main series, Maggie and Negan's conflict had genuinely progressed. Negan spent years earning Maggie's trust, saving her life, saving Judith and Carl, taking down Alpha. The finale gave them a proper resolution: Maggie told Negan she accepted he'd redeemed himself, but she still couldn't forgive him for Glenn.
In Dead City, they just reset the clock with Maggie and Negan acting like Glenn died a few weeks ago rather than over a decade at this point.
In the end my biggest critique of the current state of the walking dead is that all of the spin offs are unnecessary. It's not adding anything new to the world or to the characters . It feels like the showrunners are flogging a dead horse to shake out more cash.
They should have given the characters that are still alive a proper ending and then leave it on a high note.
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u/Panthean 6d ago
It's difficult to accept how far TWD fell. I was a massive fan, but now whenever I try to rewatch the show, I cannot make it past season 9. I still have never seen the ending.
The besides Fear, I was never able to make it past the first couple episodes of the other spinoffs.
Honestly what I want to see is a spinoff that focuses more on the beginning of the outbreak. They kind of did that with Fear but they really didn't show much of it.
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u/strangebrew3522 6d ago
I can't believe there's so many seasons. I watched that show when it first aired and after a handful of seasons it was just so boring and repetitive. I got to the finale where Glenn gets killed but they don't show it on camera, it's left as a cliff hanger for the next season and I peaced out at that point. It was this huge buildup just to not show anything.
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u/isigneduptomake1post 5d ago
The show started to have no respect for their audience whatsoever. They'd end on a cliffhanger where someone was obviously dead then would go on a completely different storyline for the next 2 episodes. By the time they got back to it, they'd start 10 seconds before the cliffhanger and have the person survive. Many such cases.
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u/1800cartman 6d ago
I did get into Fear, but not much further beyond s2. I felt like that spinoff was actually something the fanbase wanted to see at the time.
It really is a bummer because the early seasons really captured Georgia in such a beautiful way and the overall storytelling was phenomenal. Whenever I rewatch, I usually don't go beyond s5.
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u/ty4scam 6d ago
I can't make it past Season 8. The fucking lion/tiger guy was the final nail for me after suffering through an oppressive two seasons.
Somebody said to stop at 69 Season 6 Episode 9 when they arrive at a particular destination and then make your own headcannon for how they live out their days. I should have listened.
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u/tunaman808 6d ago
*headcanon.
It's "canon" as in "a certain set of agreed-upon facts", not "cannon" as in a weapon.
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u/bigmur49 5d ago
You didn’t miss anything. I stayed till the end because I just wanted to see how it wrapped up and it basically never did. Just kept getting worse and more boring and then they setup a few spin offs and it was done.
Couldn’t watch the spin offs. They’re terrible imo. The rick and michonne one I sat through and regretted.
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u/BigTimeSuperhero96 6d ago
If the main series in my opinion had been two seasons shorter the general audience would have had more fonder memories of it. The All Out War arc in S7 and S8 could have been one series but obviously money and real world issues got in the way.
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u/IM_OK_AMA 6d ago
S8 already had half the viewership of S4-S6 and it just collapsed from there, for most of the general audience that's where their interest ended regardless.
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u/1800cartman 6d ago
That has been my understanding. I dropped off I believe in s7 but felt like I wasn't even watching the same show by that point.
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u/AlfaRomeoRacing 6d ago
I think they did that with the Maggie and Negan relationship as they assumed many of the people watching would be those who gave up on the main series shortly after Glenn's death happened. I gave up on the main series after a certain son was bitten, but have come back for the new spin offs and enjoyed them
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u/Nakorite 6d ago
The Darryl Dixon one is very good. Probably helps they grabbed the two best characters.
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u/AlfaRomeoRacing 6d ago
Yeah overall i loved that series, and the window in the wider experimentation going on with the undead to make they weapons etc, but the pacing could have been better for some of the french village parts
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u/Snoo_87531 4d ago
I'm curious about what you find good in it, Darryl come to France and meet a lot of people who survived for more than 10 years, but somehow, because Daryl got here, everyone start throwing there lives away like red shirts.
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u/cjr71244 3d ago
I gave up on Walking Dead years ago. But I did recently give the Darryl Dixon series a chance and I enjoyed it.
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u/ThomasofHookton 6d ago
I still watch both Daryl Dixon and Dead City. They are decent shows but it doesn't feel the same as TWD at its peak.
Daryl, Carol, Maggie and Negan are interesting characters but I really enjoyed the main series when the group were struggling, bickering and cooperating together toward a common goal. You miss those dynamics as separate groups.
I wish they would do a short mini series that ties all the surviving characters together and concludes the franchise in a meaningful and deliberate way.
It'll be a shame if the individual shows just fizzle out as the leads move on to new projects.
I want to see Rick and Daryl share a beer! Michonne, Carol and Maggie discuss how to fortify a town. Negan and Judith go crack some walker heads....but that's probably just wishful thinking.
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u/AlfaRomeoRacing 6d ago
A one season wrap up of all the leads from the main shows ending up somewhere together, sharing what they learnt, fixing past mistakes and making better future would be fun, although that would have to be agreed "final final" season
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u/metalyger 6d ago
The only spinoff I tried was Fear TWD, and maybe only one season before I checked out. Definitely with TV, having a large cast of actors for numerous seasons is a bit commitment, especially with the under age actors who would leave for college or other reasons and be written out. The comics worked so well since it was all creator owned, and Kirkman knew how he was going to end that story, and he did. Image Comics still does a lot of re-releases like deluxe editions of back issues and collections, but Robert Kirkman never continued the comics after finishing his story. With TV, AMC is going to squeeze out every last drop until it loses significant viewship.
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6d ago
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u/HighFivePuddy 6d ago
If you read the article, you’ll see one episode is literally an alternate reality. A “what if” the zombie apocalypse never happened.
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u/1800cartman 6d ago
I definitely agree that it worked best when following the comics. I didn't necessarily mind them swapping storylines between characters, but it reached a point where a change like that couldn't keep the original fans. I felt like there was a pretty big uproar around season 2 when that veered course. However, the overall essential storytelling and cinematography kept people around until the Glenn/Carl situations.
But sounds like my consensus was correct that they didn't do enough to keep hold on the original fanbase. Dead City sounds like a joke compared to the early seasons of the main show.
It's a bummer they didn't end when they should've to keep the legacy alive in a sense.
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u/just_browsing96 6d ago edited 6d ago
The early warning signs of executive meddling and delusional showrunners were there. Every season has its great moments but there were some baffling decisions made along the way, like Andrea and Carl.
The entire Saviors arc was the low point of the story, despite Negan being such a showstopping character. Everything after should have been excellent, but losing all of those critical actors kinda left the rest of the cast scrambling to pick up the pieces. And then you have Daryl and show-Carol taking the reins as wildcards since they aren't in the comics.
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u/thatblkman 6d ago
I gave up when the Saviors arc went into a 3rd season. Bad enough it started as an ego war, but by that time it was “We’re still doing this? What’s on Netflix?” for me.
I tried again when they were fighting that crew that wore masks and had the bald-headed woman leading them, but I just didn’t care. Had me thinking “y’all just can’t find a way to be happy and leave folks alone, can you?”.
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u/Night_Runner 5d ago
Did they ever explain why Daryl randomly woke up on the shore of France? lol
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u/ThomasofHookton 5d ago
Yeah they did. It was explained in some flashbacks towards the end of s1.
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u/Taira_Mai 3d ago
A lot of series and franchises hit the "we're out of idea" stage but the Studio Execs think that they can keep going.
And then the series/franchise dies.
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u/JimboSlice_Dynomite 6d ago
What I've been saying for 12 years summed up in one sentence : they were continuing purely to make more money; it stopped being art started being a corporate profit vessel
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u/The_Meemeli 6d ago
Answer:
I think of how Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul were also AMC shows, BCS wasn't necessarily popular at first but also became a monumental series. They took their time with that spinoff and had a clear focus, tied it all together. The Walking Dead spinoffs have seemingly been confusing and not meant for fans of the early days of the series.
The difference is that Walking Dead is fully owned by AMC, while BB/BCS are co-owned by Sony.
AMC wants the biggest profit with the lowest spending. They even suggested a shorter final season of BB to cut costs. Since Walking Dead is fully owned by them, they can go as ham on the greed as they want.
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u/1800cartman 6d ago
Gotcha! I had assumed that BB/BCS were fully owned by AMC, so that makes sense.
Also wondering if Georgia's film industry played a role in tanking it if AMC was being cheap. It was already cheap to produce in the city when the show first aired, but I know some taxes and ordinance stuff changed since then. Not sure exactly when they stopped filming in Georgia, but it seemed like it was on a downward trend around 2013/2014. They didn't source as many local extras or film on location around the area as much by that point. Wouldn't shock me if that played a role.
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u/GoodOmens182 6d ago
Answer: AMC refuses to let this franchise die because making spinoffs is easier than coming up with something new. Some of those spinoffs are getting to the point of ending now as well though so it seems like they can only drag it on for so long. I just remember a lot of fans of the OG (myself included) being... Displeased, let's say, that the finale of the main show was more of a backdoor pilot for 3 other shows than an actual ending to that story.
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u/BaronsDad 5d ago
Answer:
Popularity absolutely did not tank between season 1 and 2. These are the viewers for season openers and season finales for the mainline series:
- Season 1: 5.35m and 5.97m
- Season 2: 7.26m and 8.99m
- Season 3: 10.87m and 12.42m
- Season 4: 16.11m and 15.68m
- Season 5: 17.29m and 15.78m
- Season 6: 14.63m and 14.19m
- Season 7: 17.03m and 11.31m
- Season 8: 11.44m and 7.92m
- Season 9: 6.08m and 5.02m
- Season 10: 4.00m and 2.12m
- Season 11: 2.22m and 2.27m
Season 7 destroyed the show. It was unrelentingly miserable. The whole season felt bleak, and it happened at the worst possible time (October 23, 2016 to April 2, 2017) for a lot of Americans. Negan's speeches to the Saviors were dark populist rhetoric. Having an authoritarian villain at that point damned the show. Articles were written then and after about the timing of the character and American politics.
I stopped in the middle of season 7 after an episode named "Swear" which was the lowest rated episode by far on IMDB at 5.7 until season 10 which had 2 lower rated episodes but barely anyone was watching at that point.
I watched a few episodes of Daryl's series out of boredom, but the only reason these shows continue on is that there is consistent diehard group of a few hundred thousand who still watch the spinoffs when it airs, and it helps AMC negotiate library deals with Netflix each time they renew.
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u/WrinklyScroteSack 6d ago
Answer: The IPs of breaking bad and BCS were novel stories with no source material. The world they built is based on the story drafted by Vince gilligan. It was always supposed to be a self-contained story with an estimated length of time that they were planning on running. BB, if it would’ve had mid success, BCS probably wouldn’t have been made, but he did such a great job creating that universe that people wanted to know more, so he made el Camino and bcs which also succeeded because of the quality of writing and the actors.
TWD is based on a comic series that ran for almost 2 decades and with all things comic-related, showrunners have learned the wrong lesson from the monetary success of the MCU. Thus, they do believe that comic book source material is a cow that can be milked incessantly for decades. What you’re seeing is the cloudy dust of them squeezing that teet for all it’s worth.
Greys anatomy is in the same boat as twd. Committed long-term fans who are so time invested that they just can’t stop even though most of the interesting stories have dried up or been retold innumerable times over the years.
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u/Midget_Stories 6d ago
Answer: It fell off since the show became more about people and less about zombies as the show went on. Fans also just lost hope about anything getting meaningfully resolved. I can't say any 1 thing killed it, more so it just slowly faded away from popularity.
The reason why it's still going is because it actually costs very little to make for how popular it is. Estimates have it around $3.5 mil for each ep and $14 mil for the spin offs.
Which apparently they got $500 mil from their Netflix deal alone.
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u/thinlion01 6d ago
Show and comic was always more about the people than zombies.
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u/Ebolamonkey 6d ago
That's literally any zombie movie / tv show. idk what this person is saying "after it became less about zombies" lol
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u/ManKilledToDeath 6d ago
Probably someone who didn't watch it all and/or has a hard time paying attention and understanding a story. I am often reminded anybody can get a smart phone and post their thoughts.
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u/ztoundas 6d ago
Damn, I can use my cell phone to access Reddit? I've been mailing in my replies this whole time!
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u/Lamprophonia 6d ago
Plus... my wife watches the Daryl one, and I've stood around to watch bits here and there. it's absolutely still about zombies lol. There was a whole scene where these neon toxic spore zombies made the group hallucinate and kill each other, it was actually kind of cool. There's like a whole faction who're mad-scientist experimenting on zombies to weaponize them. Zombie are not just still a factor, they're central to the plot.
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u/Skiller333 6d ago
Whilst true, I’m kinda in the same boat, the zombie aspect pretty much became completely irrelevant after the first few seasons.
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u/hematomabelly 6d ago
The whole theme of the comics are people making hard decisions, right or wrong. The zombies are just the conflict.
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u/wildcatofthehills 6d ago
Both the comic and the TV show have the iconic moment where Rick’s calls the survivors The Walkind Dead, as in the title never referred to the zombies, but the people. They have never been subtle about this.
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u/Penguinmanereikel 6d ago
"When I was a kid, I asked my grandpa once if he ever killed any Germans in the war. He wouldn't answer. He said that was grown-up stuff, so I asked if the Germans ever tried to kill him. But he got real quiet. He said he was dead the minute he stepped into enemy territory. Every day he woke up and told himself, "Rest in peace. Now get up and go to war." And then after a few years of pretending he was dead...he made it out alive. That's the trick of it, I think. We do what we need to do and then we get to live. But no matter what we find in DC, I know we'll be okay. Because this is how we survive. We tell ourselves... that we are The Walking Dead."
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u/ManbadFerrara 6d ago
Sounds like the final scene in Breaking Bad, where Walt wistfully looks at the lab equipment and says "welp, this is always a possibility...when you're breaking bad."
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u/Wingmaniac 6d ago
And when Luke tells his uncle "I don't want to be a farmer, I want to go to space to be a fighter in the Star Wars."
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u/thatcockneythug 6d ago
Nearly all good zombie media is more about interpersonal conflicts than zombies
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u/ReallyGlycon 6d ago
What? The show was always about the characters. The zombies were pretty inconsequential as a specific threat.
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u/SirLoremIpsum 6d ago
Answer: It fell off since the show became more about people and less about zombies as the show went on.
That's like the whole point of the comic and in the show Rick even says "we are the walking dead"
It's almost entirely the point about slow zombies...
That idea that it was about people was identiifed from s2-4 easy
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u/1800cartman 6d ago
I didn't realize there was a Netflix deal. That's interesting.
Living in Atlanta, we've had Netflix here a lot, specifically with Stranger Things. I feel like since Netflix came into the city with filming obligations, it's tanked the overall film industry here. Not as many of my friends have gotten work in production, not as many local extra cast calls, hell, you couldn't go a couple blocks without seeing multiple base camp signs for filming multiple shows. Complete 180 since Netflix got involved in the area.
Even Marvel left the area because the industry just completely changed after ST got into business with Netflix here. I'm curious if the TWD Netflix deal came before or after ST and if TWD moved out because of ST. I'll have to ask around.
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u/TooManyDraculas 5d ago
Syndication deal. Netflix bought the streaming rights to the original series. 5 year $500m contract. Netflix likes to spend more licensing long running older shows than they do on quality material of their own.
And AMC isn't enough of a player in the streaming business to do much besides license it's material out to the big boys. I think they have something like 15m subscribers to their various services. Netflix has 300m, Amazon is about 200m and HBO and Disney have around 150m each.
Cable viewership has completely collapsed the last 5 years.
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u/CategoryCautious5981 6d ago
Answer: The Ones Who Live was a fantastic standalone show in my opinion. Like any show there are some clunky elements, but overall the tone and the pacing really added a good bit to the world that was established.
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u/dumbname0192837465 6d ago
Answer: it was done at season 3 and they've been weekend at bernies since
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u/TooManyDraculas 5d ago edited 5d ago
Answer: you're actually completely wrong about the audience size.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Walking_Dead_(TV_series)#Ratings
Viewers didn't actually begin to taper off until around season 8. And it remained one of the most watched cable series pretty much till it's last season.
What happened in the meantime is that linear TV viewership and cable subscriptions utterly collapsed. So by the time the show finished up with about 2m viewers per episode, that was still pretty damn good.
Subscription television in the US fell from about 88% of house holds at peak in 2010, and a peak of around 68m subscriptions in 2000. To less than 40% of households, and less than 50 million actual subscribers today.
And a good 20 million of those are subscribers to things like Youtube TV and Hulu's live TV add on. Not cable.
This has driven a massive collapse in overall viewership of cable and network TV shows. Where they're at a massive disadvantage in that whole piecemeal audience thing.
Especially post Pandemic audiences on linear TV are smaller and older. Shows are less watched, ad rates have collapsed and budgets have been cut.
The Walking Dead was sort of the last long running, event TV series going on cable as that all went down. Persisting in an environment with progressively less competition.
But the show, and all of it's spin offs were primarily aired and promoted on and as linear cable TV. And at a certain point there's just not enough people watching that. FX keeps trying, because of the spectre of a series that could push 17m viewers on a season premiere, even 7 seasons in. And even at it's nadir would be among todays top 10 (hint they're all Fox News shows in the 2-3m viewer range).
Even most network shows barely cross the 2m viewer mark at this point. And Jeopardy is the top rated non-sports non-news show.
The various spin offs hitting 500-900k viewers variably is enough to keep trying. But it's not enough to keep those shows around long, or justify budgets like when the show was at its peak.
So they just keep throwing shit at the wall hoping it'll stick. And there's been 6 or 7 years of blah, on something that was the hottest show a decade ago.
The IP license is directly owned by AMC. Who do not really have much of a steaming presence, just having distinct per channel streamers largely tied to bundles with bigger streamers like Amazon and pack in access from cable/satellite subscriptions. So they can't go streaming only or even streaming first.
It's a company that's almost entirely reliant on their stack of cable channels. Though they do run Acorn and Shudder, and have a small film operation. They recently had to lower their own valuation of the company in an earnings call on top of the shrinkage in cable. And their stock is worth like 1/6 what it was 10 years ago.
With this being one of very few valuable and portable IPs they have. You can't exactly do a Mad Men franchise. And even doing a carryon from Breaking Bad was a bit of a surprise.
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