With The Walking Dead’s second spinoff, titled The Walking Dead: World Beyond, coming to television this year, it was only a matter of time before the two shows crossed over at some point. Now, Chief Content Officer Scott M. Gimple confirms fans can expect the shows to crossover, it just won't happen in the way fans may want.
For some background, The Walking Dead already has CRM, a network of survivors who first appeared in Season 8 of the show before showing up in Season 5 of Fear the Walking Dead. It’s not exactly a crossover in the traditional sense, but it does connect the shows in the same universe. In terms of the original series actually crossing over with World Beyond, here’s what Scott M. Gimple had to say about the possibility of that happening outside of CRM:
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, they do share a universe. Though it is really cool to see how this different corner of the universe operates and the lives that they have been living all this time, it will be these little places that cross. We’ve been talking about aspects of next season of World Beyond. There might even be a big aspect of crossover with one of the shows. That’s the other part of it is we have these plans, but we’ve got to execute them. That’s sort of next season. We’re still finishing up this season.
So, while there will be small-scale crossovers, it sounds like it won’t be happening in Season 1 of World Beyond. That makes sense, because the series needs to establish its own world and setting before branching out. Though the shows share similar mythology, Scott M. Gimple wants to differentiate World Beyond from the other two series, so they won’t be “as involved with” the new series.
Speaking with EW, Scott M. Gimple continued, explaining how something as simple as an object could appear across the shows, confirming the shared universe without any of the characters crossing paths. He's definitely thinking small scale, because the in-world logistics alone also make it hard to have a traditional crossover.
They do share a universe, so where there are opportunities, we want to take them. Even with that album cover [with Ryan Hurst’s Beta appearing on Fear the Walking Dead], it was so funny. I mean just by virtue of the fact that there was a scene with all these records in it, and we knew this shared aspect, we didn’t even want to make that big a deal of it. We just wanted it to exist in there so that people might, deep cut-wise, we were hoping one or two people might notice into the future. We didn’t want to make as big a deal about it. It’s just nice, even unto ourselves, between the shows to feel that it’s one world. That said, unlike reality today, these worlds are so isolated from each other because of a lack of mass communications, mass transportation. In some ways, they are on little islands from each other, so when they can have those crosses, it’s kind of wonderful.
Fans may not be able to get a full-blown crossover between any or all of TWD series, but it's still always good to see at least small nods to other shows that fill this expanding universe. If you love The Walking Dead, you'll take what you can get.
The Walking Dead: World Beyond will premiere on AMC in April. The Walking Dead Season 10 will return to AMC on Sunday, February 23 at 9 p.m. ET. For more on what to watch, be sure to check out our 2020 midseason schedule.
