The Walking Dead: World Beyond is the newest addition to The Walking Dead Universe, providing a new and younger perspective of the apocalypse. The cast and producers of this new series make their SDCC debut at Comic-Con At Home. It’s time to meet the new survivors and find out what kind of issues they are facing.
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TWD: World Beyond focuses on the children who grew up in the apocalypse. From the trailers we know that a group of kids embark on their own dangerous journey. TWD: World Beyond is a two season limited series that could tie into the Rick Grimes movies.
Panel: Scott M. Gimple, Matt Negrete, Aliyah Royale, Alexa Mansour, Hal Cumpston, Nicolas Cantu, Nico Tortorella, Julia Ormond, Joe Holt, Annet Mahendru
Moderator: Chris Hardwick
Hardwick announces the series premiere will follow The Walking Dead season 10 finale in October. Then he showed the new trailer. He broke up the cast into two groups with Gimple and Negrete staying on for the entire panel. Royale, Mansour, Ormond and Holt are in group one. Cumpston, Cantu, Tortorella, and Mahendru are in group two.
MEET THE CAST
Each actor got a chance to talk about their characters. Mansour and Royale play the Bennett sisters, Hope and Iris. Mansour says Hope’s name is ironic because she has no hope. Iris has all of the hope. But Royale says Iris has no hope without Hope. Royale admits to being terribly frightened of the walkers.
Gimple says the World Beyond sisters start in a place of safety, but not a place of ignorance. They leave their safety to do something heroic. The one thing all of the shows have in common is that love exists. And everything the sisters put themselves through is for love.
Negrete explains that this community experience a terrible night they refer to as the Night the Stars Fell. It is the last time these people felt fear because they ran to safety and stayed there for 10 years. Each year they celebrate Monument Day to reflect on that night, what it means to them and think about what kind of monuments they want to be for the future.
World Beyond takes place 10 years into the apocalypse and the show focuses on these children who grew up in the apocalypse. These kids in particular grew up in this safe place, but they know what walkers are and how to kill them. But they’ve never had to actually kill a walker.
Cantu plays Elton, he’s an old soul. He thinks the dead walking the earth is a part of a this extinction event. He wants to see the world before it ends. Elton has a black belt in karate, so Cantu had to actually learn karate for the show. Hardwick asks Cantu if he were to cross over to the OG show, which character would he want to team up with. Cantu says Elton and Eugene would a genius powerhouse for the ages. They could save everything.
Cumpston plays Silas. Silas has a dark past that he’s running from. He doesn’t really have friends or family at the start of the show. His strength is being nice, but that’s not a useful skill in the apocalypse. Silas agrees to go with the group because it’s better than living in a community that shuns you. So Silas cuts his losses and is like, “yeah, let’s go kill some zombies.
Tortorella is Felix, the Bennett sisters’ guardian and head of security for the community. Felix’s main job is to teach the younger generation how to protect themselves.Tortorella says this is the most physically demanding job he’s ever had, but it’s rewarding. He wants to be an action star for the rest of his life now.
Mahendru plays Huck, Felix’ partner in crime and Hope’s mentor. She feels a little responsible for Hope being out in the world and wants to bring the group back before anyone gets hurt. Huck is also on the security team. She spent a lot of time in the wilderness. She’s excited to join a group again. Huck knows the best way to survive is with a group. Her friendship with Felix is fantastic.
Holt plays Dr. Bennett, he’s a renowned biochemist and geneticist. He goes off to teach about he’s discovering about trying to cure the plague. Holt would pick Lucille as his weapon of choice for the apocalypse. Gimple says Lucille has a contract so she can’t be on any other TWDU show.
Ormond plays Elizabeth, who arrives on the show in a helicopter with three rings on it. Like the one that took Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln). Ormond says she’s a high up figure in a soon to be discovered new, authoritarian community. She’s a pragmatic character and maybe a little sociopathic.
A WORLD BEYOND
Does Elizabeth know where Rick is? Ormond says if Elizabeth knows were Rick is she wouldn’t tell you. And if she did tell you, you shouldn’t believe her. But Ormond is not going to say because she’d like to keep her job. Gimple approves of that answer.
Ormond binge watched The Walking Dead and Fear the Walking Dead when she got the role. Holt binge watched 90 episodes in 10 days and now he’s an addict. Andrew Lincoln hasn’t even watched the show.
Gimple says the CRM are a mysterious force and the communities that they keep secure are very secretive. The show goes into the one of the communities, but we won’t get a deep look. The CRM has a huge presence in the story, so we’re going to learn a lot about them.
Negrete says they will explore how geographical location affects the apocalypse. He says there’s a lot of tire fires because the tires burn forever and distract the walkers.
The zombies are going to be different because they’ve been decaying for 10 years. Negrete is a fan of disgusting walkers. He says anything that maximizes disgust, they are going to do it.
Michael Cudlitz directed an episode of World Beyond. They shot the entire first season and wrapped up post-production right before the coronavirus shutdown. The writers are working on season two.
Gimple stated that it’s hard to write a story and characters without a Walking Dead comic book, but it’s easier in other ways because it’s total discovery. There are no expectations. With The Walking Dead, the fans know where the story is going.
Hardwick asks about the importance of showing a perspective from younger characters who’ve been sheltered their entire lives. It was time for something new and telling a different kind of story with a different point of view. They want to show the audience a “world beyond” what they’ve already seen.
That’s a wrap for The Walking Dead: World Beyond SDCC 2020 panel.
RELATED: Check out GGA’s SDCC 2020 coverage, here!
You can watch The Walking Dead: World Beyond Comic-Con At Home panel on YouTube. The Walking Dead: World Beyond premieres on Sunday, October 4 on AMC
News Editor, Senior Contributor, and Press Editor. Coordinate breaking news, trailers and press releases. I also contribute reviews, recaps and interviews. Creator of the Indigenerd Wire, a column dedicated to the Indigenous creatives in pop culture.
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