The poster art for ‘The Walking Dead’ Season 9 has been released online! The exclusive image features Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) front and center with the rest of the gang, Carol (Melissa McBride), Michonne (Danai Gurira), Maggie (Lauren Cohan) and Daryl (Norman Reedus).
Washington D.C. falls into disrepair behind them, and the helicopter that appeared infrequently throughout Season 8 can also be seen. ‘Walking Dead’ executive producer Scott Gimple spoke about the ending of Season 8 where fans saw Rick and the newly unified communities of Alexandria, Hilltop, Kingdom, and Oceanside defeat the Saviors and capture Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan). How will it tie into the next season? Gimple said:
“I think what’s exciting about next season is, just by virtue of the narrative, the story evolves a great deal. From the things said in the finale, there’s a bigger ambition now, a bigger thing that they’re chasing. It isn’t just regular, everyday survival, which they’ve become quite adept at. It’s what to do with that. Now they’re going after civilization.”
As the remaining characters and their newfound loyalties push forward toward the new world and achieving the “very ambitious dream” of the future imagined by Carl, Rick will discover that reality “requires cooperation.” Gimple warned, saying:
“The stakes are much, much higher. That leads to very different types of stories and different sorts of conflicts.”
Gimple was recently made chief content officer of ‘The Walking Dead’ for AMC, and has said the upcoming season under new showrunner Angela Kang will mean the show “evolves in a huge way.” Gimple explained:
“They’ll be dealing with things we haven’t seen them deal with before and dealing with each other in ways we haven’t seen before. It feels like an evolved show. This very much lived in world that Rick began with. It was so informed by the pilot. It just takes this quantum leap forward in the stories that it tells.”
More changes for Season 9 will include the idea of rebuilding civilization, now that the war between communities has come to an end. This doesn’t necessarily mean that things will be happy-go-lucky, as the Season 8 finale also implied that trouble was brewing in the form of a budding civil war in Hilltop.
Reports surrounding the show have confirmed that fans will see the communities of survivors focus on building up their settlements in Season 9, with one source saying:
“While some of the communities will experience more growth, each one still has a lot of work to do… Those civilization blocks [Georgie] gave to Maggie will definitely play into the rebuilding of the Hilltop and beyond… We will see a lot more rebuilding than the typical altercations between communities. Our heroes will also be on the road a lot more than recent seasons.”
‘The Walking Dead’ Season 9 trailer will drop at San Diego Comic-Con Friday, July 20. The new season will debut this fall on AMC.
