Lennie James leaving The Walking Dead was his own decision
So, how did much of this come about? As it turns out, a lot of it had to do some of the decisions that were made by James himself, in conjunction with executive producer Scott M. Gimple. In a new interview with Digital Spy, the actor explained how Gimple came to him with the idea and made it clear that it was a choice, as opposed to something that he had to do in order to maintain his survival with the franchise:
“[Gimple] talked about his new role of overseeing both shows and then he said ‘How would you like to continue the story of Morgan in Fear the Walking Dead?’ We just started talking about it over the next couple of weeks and months as there was a lot to take on board. It wasn’t a case of ‘This is going to happen,’ it was genuinely a case of what I thought about it. There was absolutely a choice.”
“It also wasn’t a case of it being if it wasn’t me or it wasn’t Morgan then it would be somebody else, they were very much saying, ‘We were thinking about doing this thing and if you’re really not up for it, then we’ll go a completely different direction.’”
It is exciting to see how Morgan is going to factor into this new show, both in terms of the timeline and also in terms of how he will interact with some of these other characters. This is something that has never been done before with these two shows!
Beyond just that, there are still questions as to how the character leaves The Walking Dead proper in order to explore some of this new territory. It’s a bold, interesting idea, but for us here at CarterMatt, as much as we want to see him on Fear the Walking Dead (which is a show that we actually prefer over The Walking Dead at this point) we would still like to see Morgan back on The Walking Dead down the road. If nothing else, he becomes an interesting liaison in which information can be passed from one show over to the other.
There are two episodes left for The Walking Dead proper (preview the next one over here), and hopefully at some point during these we will see the reason as to why Morgan is leaving the group and the impact that it has on everyone.
What do you think is going to be coming on Morgan over the course of these final Walking Dead episodes? Be sure to share right now in the attached comments!
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