The Walking Dead season 9: More on Andrew Lincoln’s exit, Norman Reedus’ raise
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the plan for now seems to be to phase out Lincoln in much of the same way that the show is going to do so with Lauren Cohan. There are still so many questions surrounding just how the writers plan on doing this, but all signs at the moment point towards him doing an arc and then eventually either Rick leaving the show or being killed off — if we had to guess, we would argue the latter given that it is extremely hard to imagine this series without Rick Grimes being a part of it.
One of the questions that we’ve wondered for the past 24 hours is how long production has known about this; based on some evidence, it doesn’t necessarily feel like something that was in the works for a long time. Lincoln and Norman Reedus, for example, had already negotiated new deals to return, and with Andrew Lincoln Norman is now reportedly looking to ink another new deal that could be worth a hefty $20 million. While he has shown no interest in leaving the role of Daryl Dixon, it does make some sense for him to take advantage of this opportunity when it was given to him. We also still question the decision to kill off Carl (Chandler Riggs) given a possible Lincoln departure — without either Rick or Carl, this is very much hardly the same show that it was.
Personally, we do think that losing Carl when the series did comes as a huge blow not just to fans, but to cast camaraderie. The sentiment of many interviews seemed to change after his exit; Carl was the heart of the show and in many ways, Riggs’ journey was one of the most compelling ones. After his exit, The Walking Dead suddenly feels more like a job and less like a passion project. As we said, that’s just perception — but maybe perception is reality for some.
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