I don't think anyone will be hungry for more blood when the episode airs. We've gotten to know all these characters over so many years and to see not only the one that dies but how it affects all the other characters involved? You can feel their emotions because you know their relationships and what they're experiencing. Knowing what's coming and knowing what happens, it's really hard for me to watch. It's going to be a rough, rough, rough episode emotionally. It will certainly set the stage for a very exciting season. One death should be enough for this audience and one death will definitely have the affect that we're looking for. I don't know that our audience is necessarily bloodthirsty enough to be wanting to hear that there's another death. What's the likelihood that more than one character will be killed off in the season premiere? Īnd here's Kirkman's answer to the rumors/spoilers about more than one death in the Season 7 opener: This is us acknowledging that we know there are different tiers to our fan base and we're having fun with it. I wouldn't take a playful moment where we're tipping our hat to those fans to be any indicator to what we have planned or what we're doing.
That's a moment for the hardcore fans who are aware of that.
#EENIE MEENIE MINEY MO TWD TV#
The average TV viewer is not going to be aware of the specific storyline from the comic series. The season five premiere where they're at Terminus, those things are fan service. After the dumpster dive, if Glenn isn't a victim, how do you explain that? Given the baiting with Glenn and his many brushes with death - many of which can be seen as foreshadowing to Negan including when he was almost killed at Terminus with a guy swinging a baseball bat. This season more than any other changes the stage that we're telling stories in.Īnd here's his response to the Glenn foreshadowing: It'll have all the stuff you love from The Walking Dead but this isn't a show where you're ever going to be, 'Oh my God, am I still watching this show in season seven? Enough is enough, I get it.' We're telling different stories with different characters that have new and exciting and cool stuff. Season seven as a whole will have so many new environments, so many new characters and so many new scenarios that it will almost seem like season one of an entirely different show. The challenge isn't how much do we remix? Do we do more? Do we do less? The challenge has been expanding the scale of the show up and being true to the source material and opening up this world in way that I strongly feel will set the stage for many season to come. Going into this season, we're going to have four distinct locations and four distinct groups of characters that are all doing their own things. Being true to that evolution and allowing that world to change from season to season and being able to scale up the show and the way the comic book has scaled up has been a challenge. The way that we do the show and the way we adapt the comic hasn't really changed but the material in the comic has changed substantially. To a certain extent, we're staying the course. We are changing things here and there as we always have done. What kind of pressure do you feel to remix what happens in the 100th issue of the comics with Negan and Glenn? At this point, fans who haven't read the comics know what happens. Here's part of Kirkman's great Q&A with THR: Hershel's TV death was a "remix" of the same death Tyreese had in the comic, and Denise ended up dying on TV in the same way Abraham did in the comic. "Remix" is the word TWD tends to use for how they change deaths in the comic book for TV. Kirkman admitted he - and presumably Gimple, who wrote the Season 7 premiere - felt serious pressure to "remix" the Negan kill for TV. Not only that, the show has teased out Glenn's death by baseball bat several times - at Terminus, and holding a bat outside Noah's ravaged community in Richmond. That's when Negan took his barbed-wire-covered baseball bat named Lucille, did his "eenie, meenie, miney mo" thing, and bashed Glenn to death.Īs The Hollywood Reporter noted in an interview with Kirkman, that moment is so well known by now that even people who don't read the comics are aware that it was Glenn who died. Negan first met Rick's group in Issue 100, which came out in July 2012. Will it follow the comic book or not? What would you do if you were comic book writer/executive producer Robert Kirkman and showrunner Scott M. "The Walking Dead" Season 7 premiere is about to reveal who Negan killed in his first meeting with Rick Grimes's group. Warning: Spoilers ahead from "The Walking Dead" comic book.