Norman Reedus revealed when fans can expect the next chapter in the Walking Dead Universe. In October, the first season finale of his Walking Dead spinoff ended with a teaser trailer announcing "Daryl Dixon season 2 coming 2024." While an exact release date has yet to be announced by AMC Networks, the series star and executive producer confirmed today that The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon - The Book of Carol -- starring Reedus as Daryl and Melissa McBride as Carol -- is set to premiere this summer on AMC and AMC+.

Reedus announced the news on Instagram by sharing what looks like a sneak peek from an unreleased trailer: the words "season 2, summer 2024." It's likely that the Daryl & Carol trailer will air with The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live, the new six-episode event series reuniting Andrew Lincoln's Rick Grimes and Danai Gurira's Michonne.

"I've known there was much more to be told of Carol's story as I felt her so unsettled when we last saw her, as she watched her best friend, Daryl, ride away [in The Walking Dead series finale]," McBride said in October when announcing she had joined Daryl Dixon as series regular and executive producer. "Apart or (hopefully!) together, their stories run deep, and I'm so excited to continue Carol's journey here. This team of storytellers have done amazing work to land these two established characters in an entirely new world to them, and I'm loving the discoveries!"

Both seasons are shot and set in France, where Daryl washed ashore after the events of the Walking Dead's "Rest in Peace" series finale. McBride reprised her fan-favorite role in the Daryl Dixon season finale when Carol traveled to Freeport, Maine, to track down the missing Daryl.

The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon - The Book of Carol stars Reedus, McBride, and first season cast members Cl?mence Po?sy as Isabelle, Louis Puech Scigliuzzi as Laurent, Laika Blanc Francard as Sylvie, Anne Charrier as Madame Genet, Romain Levi as Codron, and Eriq Ebouaney as Fallou. The second season is executive produced by showrunner David Zabel, Scott M. Gimple, Reedus, McBride, Greg Nicotero, Angela Kang, Brian Bockrath, Daniel Percival, Jason Richman and Steve Squillante.

"It was always the hope and the desire that we would get Melissa onto the show in season one, in whatever version she was ready to do. That was always what I wanted to do and what everybody wanted," Zabel previously told ComicBook. "Norman wanted it, Scott [Gimple] wanted it, we all wanted it. So it was just a matter of working out what the show was going to be and then seeing how we could include her. Because we love the character, and we love Melissa, and we love the dynamic of Daryl and Carol together. So from the point where I started participating on the show, that was always the conversation."

The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon - The Book of Carol premieres this summer on AMC and AMC+. Stay tuned to ComicBook/TWD and follow on Facebook for more TWD Universe coverage.

Filmmakers Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett are set to deliver audiences the Universal Monster movie Abigail in April, with the pair making the promising tease that it will fully honor the mythology of vampires and feature more blood than any of their previous efforts. Given that blood is a key component in the overall mythology of vampires, it might not come as much surprise that we'll see a lot of it, but given their bloody track record, these remarks will surely excite fans looking to see what they pull off with a creature feature. Abigail is set to hit theaters on April 19th.

"All of our movies are bloody ... I would say that this is definitely the most bloody. We spent a lot of time apologizing to our actors on this movie!" Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett shared with Total Film, per GamesRadar. "I mean, blood is in the DNA of a vampire movie, and the amount of blood work in this one is... It's pretty extreme! ... But it's still fun."

With a career that includes V/H/S, Devil's Due, Southbound, Ready or Not, and two Scream movies, the pair have found a number of creative ways to spill blood for the sake of audiences' delight, but with the filmmakers often focusing on blending humor with horror, the storylines they explore don't always lend themselves to filming grotesque encounters. That all looks to change with Abigail, as evidenced by the first trailer.

The movie is described, "Children can be such monsters. After a group of would-be criminals kidnap the 12-year-old ballerina daughter of a powerful underworld figure, all they have to do to collect a $50 million ransom is watch the girl overnight. In an isolated mansion, the captors start to dwindle, one by one, and they discover, to their mounting horror, that they're locked inside with no normal little girl."

Abigail stars Melissa Barrera (Scream franchise, In the Heights), Dan Stevens (Gaslit, Legion), Kathryn Newton (Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, Freaky), William Catlett (Black Lightning, True Story), Kevin Durand (Resident Evil: Retribution, X-Men Origins: Wolverine), and Angus Cloud (Euphoria, North Hollywood) as the kidnappers and Alisha Weir (Roald Dahl's Matilda the Musical, Darklands) as Abigail.

Abigail is set to hit theaters on April 19th.

Are you looking forward to the new movie? Let us know in the comments or contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter or on Instagram to talk all things Star Wars and horror!

I've previously noted that the allusions to the work of Junji Ito that Thorogood was playing with were clear from the first issue of Hack/Slash: Back to School, issue #3 takes the ball and runs with it, managing to build on the influence and then branch into its own vision. Though the reference to Ito is clear when you see the use of spiral shapes in some key gross out moments, the full reveal of the issue's big monster confirms that while Thorogood's influence is clear she's not afraid to fully embrace the nastiness that would come with such a beast and the gore that follows in its wake.

An element of Thorogood's storytelling that may go unnoticed at times, but which shines in Hack/Slash: Back to School #3, is the lettering. In addition to the regular lettering used across dialogue balloons, Thorogood delivers a variety of styles that push the narrative and even light up the imagination of the reader with the clues they offer. Sound effects take on the exact characteristics that would define them in an aural context, elevating their use in a way that proves gigantic onomatopoeia aren't always necessary. There's also a specific moment where the coloring of a text balloon is inverted to highlight the specific word being said, a fun trick that cements this key sequence as one of the coolest in the entire issue.

Naturally, Hack/Slash as a franchise is defined to some degree by sex appeal and its scantily clad hero. Thorogood doesn't shy away from this and embraces it, going out of her way to highlight cleavage, thighbrows, and every other alluring angle present in the lead characters. Though not too different on the surface from what you might see in other Hack/Slash comics, the titillating non-nudity at least comes packaged with distinct character work that defines their choices in what they decide to wear, or rather, not wear.

To make this even more integral to the overall issue, Thorogood takes it a step further in Hack/Slash: Back to School #3, centralizing the entire plot around a villain that is only after women for their specific parts. It's a great example of the transgressive storytelling that has so far been key to Thorogood's comic work. She's delivered a comic that not only has no shame in letting its characters be sexy in front of the reader but has the central antagonist of the work be someone that is only after the aesthetic appeal of their bodies.

Hack/Slash: Back to School is both gorgeous and disgusting, something that can be found in longer expository sequences and explosive action beats. But it's also sensual and personal, taking the series' sexy aesthetics and making sure to dig into the personalities of these woman who find themselves becoming weapons at a school that tries to strip them of their humanity. Zoe Thorogood was already a comics creator to keep your eye on, but her work in Hack/Slash: Back to School confirms that she's fully capable of maintaining her identity as a writer and artist even when taking over someone else's world and characters.

Published by Image Comics

On February 28, 2024

Written by Zoe Thorogood

Art by Zoe Thorogood

Colors by Zoe Thorogood and Sarah Mitrache

Letters by Zoe Thorogood

Cover by Zoe Thorogood

The name "Shyamalan" has been synonymous with twists and turns in the world of horror, as M. Night Shyamalan's films The Sixth Sense, Split, and Knock at the Cabin have left a major impact on audiences, with the all-new horror film The Watchers set to continue the Shyamalan dynasty, as it's directed by his daughter Ishana Night Shyamalan. The Watchers has earned its first teaser trailer and it hints that Ishana is following in her father's footsteps, while also injecting all-new perspectives into the genre, furthering the skills she developed while bringing Apple TV+'s Servant to life. Check out the teaser trailer for The Watchers below before it lands in theaters on June 7th.

From producer M. Night Shyamalan comes The Watchers, written and directed by Ishana Night Shyamalan and based on the novel by A.M. Shine. The film follows Mina, a 28-year-old artist, who gets stranded in an expansive, untouched forest in western Ireland. When Mina finds shelter, she unknowingly becomes trapped alongside three strangers who are watched and stalked by mysterious creatures each night. You can't see them, but they see everything.

The Watchers stars Dakota Fanning (Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Ocean's Eight), Georgina Campbell (Barbarian, Suspicion), Oliver Finnegan (Creeped Out, Outlander), and Olwen Fouere (The Northman, The Tourist). The film is produced by M. Night Shyamalan, Ashwin Rajan, and Nimitt Mankad. The executive producers are Jo Homewood and Stephen Dembitzer.

Joining writer/director Shyamalan behind the camera are director of photography Eli Arenson (Lamb, Hospitality), production designer Ferdia Murphy (Lola, Finding You), editor Job ter Burg (Benedetta, Elle), and costume design by Frank Gallacher (Sebastian, Aftersun). The music is by Abel Korzeniowski (Till, The Nun).

It's going to be an exciting summer for Shyamalan fans, as we not only get The Watchers, but we also get the new M. Night Shyamalan movie Trap. Earlier this month, star Josh Hartnett offered a brief tease of what fans can expect from the upcoming experience.

"It's a pivot [for me]," Hartnett told IndieWire of his role. "But I try to make all of my roles pivots. If you're playing the same thing again and again, it gets boring to the audience. Working with M. Night was one of the best experiences of my career. I think he's a true Artist in the capitol-A sense of the word. And I think people are gonna be really surprised and excited about the movie we make. It's very bizarre, very dark, and it's wild."

The Watchers lands in theaters on June 7th. Trap is set for an August 2nd release.

Are you looking forward to the new movie? Let us know in the comments or contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter or on Instagram to talk all things Star Wars and horror!

Bill Skarsg?rd's Eric Draven is here. Lionsgate has finally revealed a first look at their long-awaited revival of The Crow, a franchise that had a surprisingly long life throughout the '90s and early 2000s. An adaptation of the James O'Barr indie comic of the same name, The Crow has been one of the most troubled productions in recent memory, trading off directors, stars, and even studios numerous times over the life of its development and production. The movie stars Skarsg?rd (IT), singer-songwriter FKA twigs (Honeyboy), and Danny Huston (Succession) and is reportedly a full restart of the franchise, meaning that it's likely adapting (at least loosely) the same set of comics as the first The Crow movie, which was released in 1994.

That first movie was a phenomenon, with a hit soundtrack and an aesthetic that felt like it was five years ahead of its time. The movie spawned three sequels, The Crow: City of Angels (1996); The Crow: Salvation (2000); and The Crow: Wicked Prayer (2005).

The revived The Crow has gone through a number of directors, stars, and even studios in the last decade in its long and troubled road to the big screen. Even after news came out that the movie had wrapped production, it didn't seem like a real thing that people would be actually able to watch.

"I think the beauty of Bill is that he has a disturbing beauty, and as he transforms through his loss he becomes this thing that even he can't control," director Rupert Sanders told Vanity Fair. "It's that famous line: 'Whoever fights monsters must be careful that they don't become one.' That look was me in the '90s when we were squat-raving in London, [mixed with some modern influences] like Post Malone and Lil Peep. I hope people who are 19 today look at him and go, 'That guy is us.'"

You can see the first look at 2024's The Crow (which leans hard into the The Cure-infused aesthetic of the character) below.

"It's still very much a live property," James O'Barr during a 2015 panel hosted by ComicBook.com, shortly after one of the times the production fell apart. "The company, Pressman Films, that owns The Crow film and TV rights, licensed it to a studio named Relativity. And Relativity made like a hundred bad movies and lost money so now they're in financial trouble. So the producers are just going to take it to another studio if Relativity can't get backing again. It's going to happen. I talked to Pressman Films a couple of weeks ago and they said within two or three weeks, we should have it placed at a new studio. Because the day Relativity announced that they were having financial problems, there were like a dozen other studios that called about getting The Crow property. it definitely will happen."

Brandon Lee, the son of Hollywood icon Bruce Lee, starred in the original The Crow movie, and was tragically killed on set of the film when a prop gun misfired. Subsequent films went direct to video and starred Vincent P?rez, Eric Mabius, and Ed Furlong in the title role. As in the comics, the actors have played various different iterations of The Crow, with Eric Draven being one of three. Mark Dascascos took on the role in a TV adaptation, titled The Crow: Stairway to Heaven.

"Brandon was an original voice and I think he will always be synonymous with The Crow and I hope he's proud of what we've done and how we've brought the story back again," Sanders said. "His soul is very much alive in this film. There's a real fragility and beauty to his version of the Crow, and I think Bill feels like he is a successor to that."

The Crow is directed by Rupert Sanders (Foundation, Ghost in the Shell, Snow White and The Huntsman) and written by Zach Baylin (King Richard, upcoming Creed III). Producers are Molly Hassell (Braven, Terminal), Victor Hadida (Resident Evil and Silent Hill franchises), John Jencks (Honest Thief, Guns Akimbo), and Edward R. Pressman (American Psycho, The Crow, Wall Street).

I Saw the TV Glow has a brand-new trailer after that buzzy Sundance Film Festival debut. Director Jane Schoenbrun is back on May 3rd with a trippy take on nostalgia and the existential dread of the suburbs with I Saw the TV Glow. A24 teased a trailer for the Letterboxd favorite yesterday and now fans who didn't make it all the way to the film festival are reacting to their first big look at the horror film. I Saw the TV Glow stars Justice Smith and Brigette Lundy-Paine as Owen and Maddy. They are two kids united in their love for a show called The Pink Opaque. Shared interest in the weird little program gives way to a bit of deeper understanding.

However, things are getting stranger in the suburbs as Maddy mysteriously disappears one day. All the authorities manage to find is her burning TV set in her backyard. When Owen reencounters the past, he begins to suspect that maybe The Pink Opaque wasn't really just a show they watched as kids. Other stars in this one include Ian Foreman, Helena Howard, Danielle Deadwyler, and Fred Durst. I Saw the TV Glow is written by Jane Scoenbrun. The movie is produced by Emma Stone, Ali Herting, Dave McCary, Sam Intili, and Sarah Winshall.

A24 and I Saw The TV Glow

For a lot of Sundance attendees, I Saw the TV Glow was pretty radical. Scheonbrun wanted it that way. The director talked to Collider about the idea of A24 movies as subversive and how they might stand out from big studios. For the filmmaker, the freedom to make exactly what they want on the screen really stood out.

"I just think that A24 has managed to brand themselves as the place where, at least in America, you're going to see something that you don't expect," Schoenbrun mused. "You're gonna see something that's defined by its difference from the mainstream. I think it's become colloquial in Hollywood, right? Where people are sort of like, 'I want to be in an A24-type movie.'"

"And so, that kind of power of the quote-unquote brand signifying something new or something different or something a little bit transgressive, is obviously really exciting when you're an artist trying to do exactly that," they continued. "So, after my first film, which again was a very microbudget, very small film, did pretty well here at Sundance a few years ago, I knew that the dream come true would be getting to make my sophomore feature with a company like A24."

A24 Moving To More Commercial Films

A recent report said that A24 is looking for more actions and "big IP projects" now. TheWrap wrote about A24's Noah Sacco seeking out bigger movies and the company "deemphasizing the traditional character/auteur-driven dramas." Luckily, there will still be some space for the movies that helped define the brand. But, that report points to profitability as the main driver behind this decision. One agent surveyed just didn't think it was sustainable to make these smaller movies.

"On one hand, a large number of films being released means a larger library, which is obviously more attractive to prospective buyers," the agent told that outlet. "On the other hand, too many films crowds the marketplace. But the bottom line is that auteur films don't make any money and are super risky. It's just not a good long-term strategy. They have to have a good balance of both."

Will you be seeing I Saw the TV Glow? Let us know down in the comments!

[Spoiler alert: This article contains spoilers for The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live.] It took one episode for The Walking Dead to separate Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) and Michonne (Danai Gurira) -- and a single episode to bring them back together. Sunday's "Years" premiere of new series The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live spanned Rick's eight-year absence after the Civic Republic's army helicoptered him away back in season 9 of The Walking Dead, and the episode ended explosively when someone shot down Rick's chopper.

In a full-circle moment, a CRM helicopter came crashing down to reunite Rick and Michonne eight years after a CRM helicopter airlifted him up and away. It was a moment that fans have been waiting for since 2018 -- and one that network AMC wanted to prolong a little while longer.

"I saw people worrying [Rick and Michonne] were only going to meet in episode 6," Gurira, who co-created the six-episode series with Lincoln and showrunner Scott M. Gimple, said during a panel at New York's 92nd Street Y. Gimple penned the premiere's teleplay from a story he co-wrote with Gurira and Lincoln, with the three collaborators choosing to end the episode on a cliffhanger that will continue from Michonne's perspective in episode 2.

"There was a lot of tug of war -- not between us -- with that structure," franchise overseer Gimple said diplomatically. "It was AMC, I don't care," Gurira interjected to laughter.

Gurira, also an executive producer alongside Gimple and Lincoln, added that Dan McDermott, AMC's President of Entertainment and AMC Studios, conceded that the trio made the right decision to reunite Rick and Michonne at the end of the first episode. "'That was great what you guys decided to do with that,'" Gurira recalled, laughing. "It's like, 'Aren't you glad we didn't listen to you?'"

Gurira and Gimple explained the episode's ending in an interview with EW, saying that their decision to structure the Richonne reunion this way "made sense."

"Because we had to get into the meat of the story, which is: What happens when these two people who obviously have been changed by all this time apart come back together? What does that look like with this massive barrier and obstacle of the CRM being between them? How do they get through that? What is it going to be?" Gurira said. "We can't do that until we connect them."

She continued: "I love that the audience gets thrown by the fact that BOOM -- there she is! Just as they think Rick is settling and accepting the fact that Rick is basically broken and going to stay here and not fight it anymore -- just as they feel like they've lost him, he's found. In my mind, that's good drama. So I think that was what was behind the decision."

Eight years after the couple last saw each other at the bridge, Gimple added, "They look like two different people. They are two different people. And I don't mean from each other, I'm saying from themselves. They're different than when the audience last saw them and when they last saw each other. They're completely different people than who they were."

New episodes of The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live premiere Sundays on AMC and AMC+. Stay tuned to ComicBook/TWD and follow on Facebook for more TWD Universe coverage.

The Purge franchise launched in 2013 with the debut film and has spawned a global phenomenon, as the concept has cemented itself as a reference for sanctioned lawlessness, and frequent star Frank Grillo claims that if The Purge 6 ends up happening, it'll be the final chapter in the saga. In addition to earning five feature films and taking in millions at the global box office, the concept of 12 hours in which violent crimes are legal also inspired two seasons of a TV series. With each installment seeing dwindling returns, Grillo confirms it's a matter of whether or not Universal Pictures wants to actually spend the money to bring the project to life.

"The script is done. It basically centers around Leo Barnes, my character. It would be the last of the last of the last, it's like the guy who keeps retiring," Grillo confirmed to Screen Rant. "[Franchise creator] James DeMonaco is going to direct it, if it happens, and it's a matter of money. It's a matter of how big they want the movie to be, how much money they want to spend on the movie, considering they've done a lot in this franchise. But it's a great script."

Grillo starred in the second and third installments of the series, The Purge: Anarchy and The Purge: Election Year, which feasibly served as a contained trilogy. 2018 saw the debut of The First Purge, which explored the creation of the violent tradition, while 2021's The Forever Purge took place after the events of the first three movies and delivered a world in which the violence failed to be contained to 12 hours.

DeMonaco similarly expressed last year that he was ready to move forward on the film, though that it was a decision that was up to Universal, while also hinting at the intense nature of the world he has created.

"I wrote the script. Universal has seen it," the filmmaker confirmed to The Playlist last July. "There are concerns about budget, but it definitely presents a fractured America ... The America I present in Purge 6 is where we are all separated by ideology and sexual preference. So, the states are broken down in different ways."

He continued, "It's written, it's in [Universal's] hands. I think they're scared about the budget. But my thing was if I was going to come back and direct a sixth one, it was going to be something bigger and a little more epic in scope, with this new America I want to present and bringing back [Frank Grillo's] character. So, it's kinda in limbo."

Stay tuned for updates on a possible The Purge 6.

Are you hoping the sequel gets brought to life? Let us know in the comments or contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter or on Instagram to talk all things Star Wars and horror!

When Morales nicknamed Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) "helicopter boy" on the first season of The Walking Dead, the moniker referred to the sheriff's deputy's attempt to flag down a helicopter he saw flying over downtown Atlanta in the early days of the zombie apocalypse. Call it prescience. Call it coincidence. But eight years after an injured Rick was airlifted away aboard a Civic Republic Military chopper, "helicopter boy" moved through the ranks to become Sergeant Major Rick Grimes: a CRM soldier and helicopter pilot.

CRM Lt. Col. Donald Okafor (Craig Tate) recruited and trained Rick to change the secret army that helicoptered him away from his wife Michonne (Danai Gurira) and daughter Judith on season 9 of The Walking Dead -- a mission made possible after Jadis/Anne (Pollyanna McIntosh) saved Rick's life by handing him over to the CRM. While Jadis was ultimately the link between Rick and this expanded world over on The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live, helicopters have been a recurring motif going back to the very first episode of The Walking Dead.

Season 1 Episode 1: "Days Gone Bye"

After waking up in an abandoned hospital, Rick walked past a graveyard of military vehicles and aircraft -- including a black helicopter. Rick later saw the reflection of an operational helicopter when he rode into zombie-overrun Atlanta on horseback.

Season 2 Episode 13: "Beside the Dying Fire"

The season 2 finale began with a walker herd forming on the streets of Atlanta after trailing the helicopter that Rick saw in the pilot. The herd eventually made its way to rural Georgia to overrun and destroy the Greene family farm.

Season 3 Episode 3: "Walk With Me"

The Governor (David Morrissey) of Woodbury came across a crashed National Guard helicopter that Michonne and Andrea (Laurie Holden) watched go down in smoke.

Season 4 Episode 1: "30 Days Without an Accident"

After Rick's group settled into the prison, Michonne, Daryl (Norman Reedus), Glenn (Steven Yeun) and others went on a supply run into a Big Spot store with a crashed helicopter on its roof that eventually gave way to falling walkers.

Season 7 Episode 10: "New Best Friends"

When Rick first encountered Jadis and the Scavengers at the junkyard, eagle-eyed viewers spotted two background details: a helipad among the heaps and a flying object that some speculated was a helicopter. Savior Simon (Steven Ogg) later questioned Jadis about the helipad in the season 8 episode "The Lost and the Plunderers," which marked the first appearance of the three-ring symbol that we later learned represented the CRM and the Alliance of the Three.

Season 8 Episode 5: "The Big Scary U"

Rick was en route to Jadis' junkyard when he heard and then briefly saw a black helicopter fly overhead before disappearing behind the trees.

Season 8 Episode 14: "Still Gotta Mean Something"

The three-ring symbol was visible on the helicopter that Jadis summoned to the junkyard where she planned to trade Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) for extraction. After a struggle ensued and her flare snuffed out, the CRM helicopter turned around and left without its pickups.

Season 9 Episode 2: "The Bridge"

19 months after Jadis assimilated into the Alexandria Safe-Zone, she was on lookout duty when she saw lights and heard the whirring blades of a circling helicopter in the night sky.

Season 9 Episode 3: "Warning Signs"

When Saviors started going missing and then turning up dead, Jadis was suspected to be the culprit. She tried to convince Father Gabriel (Seth Gilliam) to run away with her to "another place": the first indirect mention of the Civic Republic. "It's far from here, but if we go together, we can get there. It can be different for us. There's only one thing. You can't tell anyone," she told Gabriel of the hidden city of 200,000 survivors eventually revealed on The Walking Dead: World Beyond. "But if you can trust me, and help me with one small part of the deal, we can have a life like you can't imagine."

But Gabriel was going to alert Rick that she'd been trading people, so Jadis knocked him unconscious and told Gabriel: "And all this time... I thought you were a B."

Season 9 Episode 4: "The Obliged"

After designating a captive Rick and Negan as "A's," Jadis planned to have Gabriel bitten by a walker and trade him to the helicopter after she was told extraction required an "A." She ultimately spared Gabriel and abandoned the junkyard.

Season 9 Episode 5: "What Comes After"

Rick was bucked off his horse and impaled on a rebar pipe while trying to reroute a walker herd in "The Obliged." As he passed in and out of consciousness, Rick's hallucinations brought him back to the hospital where he woke up after the outbreak. Outside his window was a flock of helicopters foreshadowing his fateful airlift.

Season 9 Episode 5: "What Comes After"

Rick washed up on a riverbed after blowing up his bridge to save the communities from being overrun and destroyed by a walker herd. Jadis found him and radioed the helicopter pilot: "I have a 'B.' Not an 'A.' I never had an 'A.' He's hurt, but he's strong. Can you help him?" She then insisted that she was trying to save a friend who saved her... and the CRM helicopter airlifted Rick from Virginia to a military hospital at the Civic Republic of Philadelphia. After multiple failed escape attempts, Rick spent the next six years working in consignment on the outskirts of the city, and another two years training as a soldier and pilot in the Civic Republic's military.

Read our rundown on everything you need to know about the CRM, our Rick & Michonne timeline explainer, and our recap about Rick's eight-year disappearance. Stay tuned to ComicBook/TWD and follow on Facebook for more TWD Universe coverage.

The X-Files creator Chris Carter first brought back the series for new episodes in 2016 and then delivered another season in 2018, with the filmmaker revealing that he'd be open to exploring more adventures in the world of paranormal investigating if stars David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson were interested in returning. With nearly six years having passed and there having been no momentum on more episodes, along with Anderson distancing herself from the franchise, this would make such a possibility unlikely, though it might come as a relief that Carter is seemingly uninterested unless the original stars were involved. Black Panther director Ryan Coogler is currently developing a new take on the concept.

When asked by TheWrap if he would be interested in another season, Carter admitted, "Oh, if David and Gillian wanted to do it again. Yeah, probably, then I would be inspired."

The series debuted in 1993, a time in which the public was growing more interested in things like UFOs, aliens, crop circles, and all things paranormal. The tech-forward concept also coincided with public access to the Internet, making a perfect storm of a compelling sci-fi series that reflected the niche interests of its audience. The series grew so popular that, between Seasons 5 and 6, the movie The X-Files: Fight the Future hit the big screen.

In Season 7, Duchovny left the series and Robert Patrick joined the fray as John Doggett, though Duchovny's Mulder would ultimately return for episodes in its ninth and final season. The X-Files series finale aired in May of 2002, yet earned another feature film in 2008. Both Duchovny and Anderson starred in that film, while also starring in its two revival seasons.

When looking back on the project, Carter confirms that it was the chemistry between Duchovny and Anderson that solidified its legacy.

"People ask the reasons for its success and the answer I give to them is David and Gillian," Carter detailed. "If it weren't for that relationship, and the actors who portrayed Mulder and Scully, the show would not have been the hit it became."

The Season 11 finale revealed to audiences that Scully's son William, who we were led to believe was also Mulder's son, was actually the result of Scully having been drugged and impregnated by the Cigarette-Smoking Man, disappointing not only longtime viewers, but even Anderson herself. Back in 2022, she expressed how she had moved passed the series and would only be somewhat interested if the material was approached by a fresh set of filmmakers.

"It just feels like such an old idea. I've done it, I did it for so many years, and it also ended on such an unfortunate note," Anderson shared with Variety at the time. "In order to even begin to have that conversation [about another season] there would need to be a whole new set of writers and the baton would need to be handed on for it to feel like it was new and progressive. So yeah, it's very much in the past."

Stay tuned for updates on the future of The X-Files.

Would you like to see Mulder and Scully return? Let us know in the comments or contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter or on Instagram to talk all things Star Wars and horror!

The X-Files creator Chris Carter has been an integral component of the series in all its iterations over the last few decades, and with Black Panther director Ryan Coogler set to revive the concept in a new take on the material, Carter confirmed he has given the project his blessing. The filmmaker admitted that, since The Walt Disney Company owned the rights to the franchise, Coogler and company didn't have to seek approval to reimagine the material, though that he will serve as a cheerleader and support whatever form the new project takes. Even without seeking Carter's approval, he admitted that he was "honored" that he was contacted at all about the project.

"I'm not supposed to be talking about it, according to Disney. But I'll tell you, yes. I've had a conversation with him. Yes, he likes to go with a diverse cast. And he's got some good ideas," Carter shared with TheWrap about whether he has spoken to Coogler about the project. In regards to whether he'll get involved in the project in any capacity, he confirmed, "I wouldn't. Only as a cheerleader. They don't need my blessing. 20th Century Fox and Disney owns the show. They are free to do with it what they believe. I'm honored that they came to me and asked me, not for my permission, but my blessing."

The X-Files premiered in 1993 and starred David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson as special FBI agents tasked with investigating seemingly paranormal cases that the rest of the Bureau might not be equipped to exploring. The series earned a total of 11 seasons and two feature films, while also pivoting into other mediums to continue to explore the worlds of these characters. The show also inspired the spin-off series The Lone Gunmen, and while not initially conceived of as a spinoff, Carter's TV series Millennium would ultimately cross over with The X-Files.

As far as whether Carter will watch the new take on the material merely as a fan, he confirmed, "Sure. Yeah. I'm curious. It's not the easiest show to write because of the subject matter. It's not like Law & Order, where you have the crime of the week. You have to imagine 'what if' and that 'what if' is oftentimes hard to tackle."

Few details about the upcoming The X-Files have been revealed, so it's unknown when audiences can expect the project to be released.

What do you think of the filmmaker's remarks? Let us know in the comments or contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter or on Instagram to talk all things Star Wars and horror!

AMC has released a new trailer for Season 2 of Interview With the Vampire and in it, Louis is having some memory problems. The new trailer, which was released on Monday and you can check out for yourself in the video below, features a series of moments from Louis (Jacob Anderson) and Claudia's (Delainey Hayles) time in Europe -- including a brief glimpse at what might be the return of Lestat (Sam Reid). But an ominous voice over of "the blood is bad here" suggests that not all is well and the trailer ends with a distressed Louis admitting that he doesn't remember "any of this" to Daniel (Eric Bogosian) and prompting what appears to be concern from Armand (Assad Zamad).

What Do We Know About Season 2 of Interview With the Vampire?

Interview With the Vampire is set to debut on May 12th on AMC. The new season will see the addition of some new cast members, with Breaking Bad alum David Costabile will guest star as Leonard, described as a seasoned television personality who has a run-in with Daniel Molloy, Roxane Duran as Madeline, and Bally Gill as "Real Rashid". Ben Daniels is also joining the cast as Santiago.

Season 2 is also expected to cover the second half of Anne Rice's novel of the same name, which sees Louis and Claudia in Paris believing that they have left Lestat behind for good. This move also brings the Theatre des Vampires into the story and is expected to expand on Armand's story as Armand leads the French coven operating the Theatre. Dubai will also continue to play a major role in Season 2 with Daniel continuing his interview of Louis -- and we may just get more of the story between Daniel and Armand that was teased at the end of Season 1.

"Why Armand is doing what he's doing and the dynamics between the two of them -- meaning Louis and Armand and then also, frankly, Armand and Molloy -- are things that will be heavily explored in Season 2," series producer Adam O'Byrne said previously.

Series Star Jacob Anderson Has Also Teased Season 2

"The theme of season 2 is this idea of memory is a monster, and how memory and guilt can follow you around," Anderson explained. "When we meet Claudia and Louis in season 2, they're dealing with the psychological and literal repercussions of what they did together," he added, referring to betraying Lestat at the end of the first season. "With Louis, you definitely get a sense there was some hesitance on his part - he didn't really go through with it, he pulled back from the decision at the last minute because he is very in love with this fellow monster. That creates tension between the two of them, Louis and Claudia, that they weren't exactly on the same page, so for those two to be together now in an unfamiliar territory creates a lot of drama."

"There are things that I can't talk about in this season that were really challenging and really shocking to me, and I've learned a lot of things about Louis and myself," Anderson added. "Another big theme in the show is that of endurance and resilience, and because of what Louis is experiencing this season, I've definitely learned that my own mind is more resilient than I thought it was. It's more robust. I can withstand more madness than I thought I could. It's been really fulfilling and challenging and fun."

"We definitely stick to the second half of the book, and I'd say it's faithful to the spirit and actually the literal plot," he added. "I love the first book, but the second half is not quite as dense as the first half, so the writers this season have definitely expanded on ideas that are hinted at or suggested in the second part of the book."

Interview With the Vampire returns for Season 2 on May 12th on AMC.

[Spoiler alert: This article contains spoilers for The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live.] "The world is so much bigger than we knew," a captive Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) wrote in a letter to his wife Michonne (Danai Gurira) during his six-year consignment at the Civic Republic of Philadelphia. "So much better, and so much worse." As the charge of Lt. Col. Okafor (Craig Tate), Consignee Grimes spent another two years moving through the ranks of the Civic Republic Military as Sergeant Major Grimes: a helicopter pilot and soldier serving in the force of 17,000 commanded by Major General Beale (Terry O'Quinn).

The CRM's code is "security and secrecy above all," Rick wrote in his letters. "Everything was about secrets. The army kept the city a secret at all costs. Everything the army did was secret to the city. And then there were the soldiers with those blood-red stripes keeping what they did a secret to the whole force. Secrets on secrets."

CRM Force Command secrets are classified within the Echelon Briefing, which contains "all the info, the whys, the things 90% of our force doesn't know about and 100% of our city doesn't," Okafor told Rick and Sgt. Maj. Pearl Thorne (Lesley-Ann Brandt). The top-secret file includes intel on the "tactical military operations" that former Lt. Col. Elizabeth Kublek (Julia Ormond) and Warrant Officer Jadis Stokes (Pollyanna McIntosh) carried out on Beale's orders over on The Walking Dead: World Beyond -- plot points that were indirectly referenced on the series premiere of The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live, along with callbacks to the earliest seasons of The Walking Dead and Fear the Walking Dead.

The episode began with a Civic Republic news broadcast reporting that the city of Omaha -- one of the three surviving cities on the continent -- had fallen, and that the CRM was investigating if the collapse was caused by pressure from a zombie mass. The Alliance of the Three was now an Alliance of Two.

The Alliance of the Three

The Walking Dead: World Beyond established the Alliance of the Three, represented by the three-ring symbol:

• The Civic Republic of Philadelphia (Population: over 200,000)
• Omaha, Nebraska (Population: 97,407)
• Portland, Oregon (Population: 87,000)

The allied civilizations included another 9,671 survivors of Omaha's smaller satellite community, the Campus Colony. 10 years post-outbreak, in 2020, Beale order Kublek and Stokes to destroy the Omaha Safe-Zone and the Campus Colony. CRM Force Command killed civilians with a chemical strike of chlorine gas, then blew up the walls with explosives and had the communities overrun by zombie herds.

Publicly, the CRM claimed that herds of the dead merged into a massive "mega-cluster" that ran through and destroyed the Omaha and Campus colonies. Secretly, the CRM eliminated two potential threats to the Civic Republic.

On World Beyond, Jadis stated that the CRM's modeling revealed the Alliance would soon become a drain on the CR's resources of food, water, energy, and power. Omaha, the Campus Colony, and Portland had become too reliant on the Civic Republic and would never be fully self-sustaining. To prevent famine and conflict from spreading to "the last light of the world," the Civic Republic's army moved to sever all alliances.

CRM Origins

World Beyond revealed that the CRM agreed to a transition of power to the Civic Republic's Civilian Government after ten years. But a decade later, in 2020, Beale lobbied for an emergency delay of civilian oversight and cited the "tragedies" at Omaha and the Campus Colony as cause for the Civic Republic's army to continue operating independently from the city.

On The Ones Who Live, Beale told Rick that the CRM originated as the Pennsylvania National Guard. True to their motto -- "civilian in peace, soldier in war" -- Beale and the Guard stopped federal forces from bombing Philadelphia at the onset of the outbreak in 2010, then became the Civic Republic's army when the city of Philadelphia was fortified and walled off as the Civic Republic.

Operation Cobalt

As a member of the Air Force, Okafor carried out the bombings of Atlanta, Georgia, and Los Angeles, California, during the military's "Sunset Protocols." Operation Cobalt was the military's last-ditch effort to contain the Wildfire Virus that spread across the globe in August 2010, and these events were depicted on The Walking Dead, Fear the Walking Dead, and The Walking Dead: World Beyond.

On World Beyond, Marine LCpl Jennifer "Huck" Mallick (Annet Mahendru) refused orders to execute civilians during Operation Cobalt and joined her mother, Elizabeth Kublek, in the ranks of the CRM. The Ones Who Live revealed that Okafor went AWOL from the Air Force when he was tasked with "liquidating" Philadelphia. Okafor was en route to Philly when he switched sides, bombing 4,000 Marines -- including his wife, Estelle -- at Lincoln Financial Field. He then joined the ranks of Beale's CRM.

Okafor recruited Rick and Thorne to help him "change the CRM from the inside," but Okafor was KIA during a helicopter flight. As Okafor warned Rick: "There's no escape for the living."

Read our rundown on everything you need to know about the CRM, our Rick & Michonne timeline explainer, and our recap about Rick's eight-year disappearance. Stay tuned to ComicBook/TWD and follow on Facebook for more TWD Universe coverage.

Ti West's horror series that kicked off with X and continued with Pearl might not be wrapping up with MaXXXine, as the director recently teased that he might have an idea for a fourth film in mind. While audiences were excited enough for X back in 2022, West surprised audiences at the film's world premiere when he revealed that the production process allowed for him to collaborate with star Mia Goth to secretly make the prequel Pearl, while MaXXXine was announced just ahead of the release of Pearl. The filmmaker noted that the possibility of a fourth film would likely be contingent upon how audiences connect with MaXXXine, which doesn't yet have a release date.

When asked by the YouTube channel What's Under the Bed? about another sequel or spinoff after MaXXXine, West teased, "Maybe, I don't know. There is this one weird asterisk idea that, if I explained it, it would make sense, but let's see what happens. Let's get this movie done first, see if people like it, and we'll go from there."

As far as the status of MaXXXine is concerned, West admitted, "I don't know what I can tell you. It's coming along. I'm editing it, so it's on its way, so far, so good. I don't mind telling you some stuff, but at the same time, the less people know, the more ... I feel like so many movies now, you know everything about them, and, surely, whenever the trailer comes out for this movie, they always give away too much, so there's something nice about not knowing a lot about it."

In X, a group of friends in the late '70s aim to capitalize on the growing trend of adult movies by making one of their own, only for their hosts on a remote farmhouse to stalk and kill them in the process, an ordeal which Goth's Maxine manages to survive. In Pearl, audiences jumped back decades to see some of the first violent tendencies of X's killer Pearl (also played by Goth) and what sent her on a path of violence.

MaXXXine is described, "The film follows Maxine (Goth), after the events of X, as the sole survivor who continues her journey towards fame setting out to make it as an actress in 1980s Los Angeles."

Also starring in MaXXXine are Halsey, Elizabeth Debicki, Moses Sumney, Michelle Monaghan, Bobby Cannavale, Lily Collins, Giancarlo Esposito, and Kevin Bacon.

Stay tuned for updates on the future of the series and for MaXXXine's release date.

Are you hoping to get another entry in the series? Let us know in the comments or contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter or on Instagram to talk all things Star Wars and horror!

[Spoiler alert: This article contains spoilers for the series premiere of The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live.] "To injure an opponent is to injure yourself." Those wise words of Morihei Ueshiba were repeated back to Morgan Jones (Lennie James) when he was a man at war with himself on season 7 of The Walking Dead, after his mentor Eastman (John Carroll Lynch) handed down a copy of The Art of Peace in season 6. Morgan would carry that book and Eastman's teachings with him over to Fear the Walking Dead, which received a shout out by way of Easter eggs in the new Walking Dead Rick and Michonne series. To quote Morgan again: "Everything gets a return."

The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live opening credits show a United States map marked with fuel drop sites used by the Civic Republic Military's fleet of helicopters. Not only do the maps highlight the three communities that formed the Alliance of the Three and were represented by the three-ring symbol -- the Civic Republic of Philadelphia; Portland, Oregon; and Omaha, Nebraska -- but Texas is marked with the radioactive sign after nuclear warheads detonated in the season 6 finale of Fear the Walking Dead.

The episode included another nod that's easier to miss. When Sgt. Maj. Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) and Sgt. Maj. Pearl Thorne (Lesley-Ann Brandt) conspire with CRM Lt. Col. Donald Okafor (Craig Tate) and he explains the meaning of "A's" and "B's," Okafor hands them a stack of books and materials to study. Included in the pile of books is The Art of Peace.

Are these Easter eggs hints that Morgan might appear on The Ones Who Live? The character's final episode of Fear the Walking Dead saw him try to radio Rick Grimes with a message: "Man, I'm gonna come and look for you, whether you're at Alexandria or not." Rick has spent the past eight years trapped at the Civic Republic of Philadelphia, the hidden city protected by the CRM -- and its soldiers previously ran afoul of Morgan over on Fear.

"I think one of the great things about the show -- and in fact, about all of the shows -- is that characters get to grow, get to incorporate their experiences into who they are," James recently told ComicBook when asked about potentially reuniting with Lincoln's Rick on The Ones Who Live. " I think if Morgan and Rick stood opposite each other, I think the change in who they were when they first met to who they would be now is humongous. I mean, it's almost kind of indescribable."

"The things they've lost, the things they've learned about themselves, the skills, the terrible, terrible things they've done, and the amazing things they've done," James continued. "Those two men standing opposite each other, the history that passes between them would just be unfathomable. It would be massive. I think back to when that first reunion came in Alexandria [in the season 5 finale], and it was this jaw-dropping moment. Now, so much more has happened since then. It would be incredible."

New episodes of The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live premiere Sundays on AMC and AMC+. Stay tuned to ComicBook/TWD and follow on Facebook for more TWD Universe coverage.

[Spoiler alert: This article contains spoilers for the series premiere of The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live.] Rick Grimes has been shot, stabbed, beaten to a bloody pulp, and blown up on a bridge filled with zombies, but the injury-prone survivor made it out of The Walking Dead relatively unscathed. That changed in AMC's new Walking Dead spinoff The Ones Who Live. In the opening minutes of Sunday's "Years" series premiere, a desperate Rick (Andrew Lincoln) chopped off his hand with an ax during a failed attempt to escape the clutches of the CRM. The Walking Dead's latest amputee then cauterized the wound by plunging his arm into a burning walker corpse.

Rick's injury happened while on a voluntary assignment with the Civic Republic's army. Five years into his consignment with the Civic Republic Military, Rick was tethered to a CRM soldier during a level-three hazardous event: protecting the Civic Republic's crops and food stores from being destroyed by a horde of flaming walkers. Rick ran as far as his steel leash allowed, wrapped his belt around his arm as a tourniquet... and severed his left hand at the wrist with a slice of his blade.

Rick suffered a similarly gruesome injury in The Walking Dead comics, which foreshadowed Rick losing a hand during the prison arc. Rick once beat a prisoner so brutally that he broke every finger in his mangled right hand (in The Walking Dead #17):

...and Rick was forced to hack off a zombie-bitten Allen's leg with a hatchet (in The Walking Dead #21):

When Rick, Michonne, and Glenn ran across the Governor of Woodbury, the villain pinned Rick down and cut off his hand with a knife (in The Walking Dead #28). Rick passed out from blood loss and woke up to find that his hand had been amputated.

Rick eventually had the Hilltop's blacksmith, Earl Sutton, make him a prosthetic hand that he debuted with his new look (in The Walking Dead #127):

Rick's TV counterpart also receives a prosthetic hand: a black-gloved fist that unsheathes a single blade with a flick of the wrist.

Lincoln, who co-created The Ones Who Live with co-star Danai Gurira and showrunner Scott M. Gimple, previously told ComicBook that he lobbied for the show to cut off Rick's hand during season 4 of The Walking Dead.

"You know, I campaigned two seasons ago when the Governor was around... I was saying, 'You've gotta do the hand, guys!' And Victor [Scalise], who was in charge of special effects, just said, 'No, no no no. Anybody else, but not you. It'll cost a fortune with green screen and blue screen,'" Lincoln explained to ComicBook in a 2015 interview. "But you know, I'm of the opinion that certainly with where the story seems to be going [in season 6], no one is safe of any long term damage." Rick ultimately made it out of season 6 and The Walking Dead without long term damage... but now the gloves are off.

New episodes of The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live premiere Sundays on AMC and AMC+. Stay tuned to ComicBook/TWD and follow on Facebook for more TWD Universe coverage.

[Spoiler alert: This article contains spoilers for the series premiere of The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live.] It's a mystery that spanned three Walking Dead shows: what are "A's" and "B's"? Jadis (Pollyanna McIntosh) was involved with trafficking people to the three-ring group that helicoptered Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) off The Walking Dead, who we later learned are the Civic Republic Military. It was under this binary classification system that Rick, Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), and Father Gabriel (Seth Gilliam) were all captured and designated as "A's," only for Jadis to radio a CRM helicopter that she had a "B": an injured Rick.

The CRM helicopter pilot told Jadis she would need an "A" for extraction from her junkyard to the Civic Republic, a hidden city of 200,000 survivors in Philadelphia. Jadis initially said she had an "A" ready for transport, but after Rick blew up a bridge filled with walkers and washed up on a riverbank, Jadis reached the pilot and told him: "I have a 'B.' Not an 'A.' I never had an 'A.' He's hurt, but he's strong." Jadis saved Rick's life, but then traded him to the Civic Republic's army as her price of admission into the secret civilization where Rick has been trapped for the past eight years.

The "Years" series premiere of The Ones Who Live reveals that Rick spent the first six years after the bridge on consignment as the charge of CRM Lt. Col. Donald Okafor (Craig Tate), who recruited Rick into the military ranks despite his four failed escape attempts. Rick spent the next two years moving up the CRM ranks as a helicopter pilot and soldier with fellow former consignee Pearl Thorne (Lesley-Ann Brandt) as part of Okafor's secret program.

"The CRM designates people they find as A's and B's," Okafor explains. "A's have a strength. A's will die for what they believe in. People follow A's. The people we cross in the world, the few we bring in, they're classified as B's. Everyday people who are just trying to survive. B's get in. A's are sent away and killed, except you two."

Rick and Thorne are "A's," but Okafor convinced CRM Major General Beale (Terry O'Quinn) to allow them into consignment and then the army. Okafor needs strong leaders to move up the ranks and change the CRM from the inside, but without Beale and the army's knowledge -- a Trojan horse. "I believe A's who become soldiers, who become leaders, are the only thing that could possibly change the CRM," Okafor tells his trusted Sergeant Majors.

The Walking Dead: World Beyond revealed the fate of "A's": test subjects for the CRM's zombie experiments. Beale and former CRM Lt. Col. Elizabeth Kublek (Julia Ormond) founded Project Votus -- a study of live test subjects through death to further the CRM's research on reanimation -- but it was CR Research Facility scientist Dr. Lyla Belshaw (Natalie Gold) who conducted the classified experiments.

"A's" are suffocated with a green liquid chlorine gas and then the victim is studied as they turn. Through this research, the CRM aims to figure out what makes the dead turn, what keeps them animated, what slows their decomposition rates, and what feeds their appetities. If the CRM can "turn off those triggers," as Belshaw put it, humanity could "eliminate the dead as a threat and eradicate them from the earth." Essentially, a potential cure for the zombie virus.

New episodes of The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live premiere Sundays on AMC and AMC+. Stay tuned to ComicBook/TWD and follow on Facebook for more TWD Universe coverage.

"Years" isn't just the title of Sunday's series premiere episode of The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live -- it's how long Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) has been in the clutches of the CRM. Eight years have passed since Rick disappeared on season 9 of The Walking Dead, where the wounded Rick led a walker herd to a bridge and then blew it up to save his family and friends. His wife Michonne (Danai Gurira) thought she watched Rick die, but Jadis/Anne (Pollyanna McIntosh) radioed someone that she had a "B" and airlifted Rick away aboard a Civic Republic Military helicopter to... somewhere.

The Walking Dead: World Beyond dropped clues that Jadis traded Rick to the CRM for entry into the Civic Republic, a hidden city of 200,000 survivors in post-apocalyptic Philadelphia. The series finale of The Walking Dead confirmed this when Rick, shown wearing a jacket with the three-ring symbol of the CRM, tried (and failed) to escape before being recaptured by a helicopter pilot who reminded Rick: "It's like he told you. There's no escape for the living."

That was Rick's third escape attempt. Picking up five years after the bridge, the new series begins with escape attempt number four: Rick cutting off his hand to free himself from a CRM soldier's leash while on assignment killing walkers (called "delts"). As Consignee Grimes, Rick is the charge of CRM Lt. Col. Donald Okafor (Craig Tate), the one who told Rick "there's no escape for the living." He's also the man responsible for saving Rick's life: Okafor convinced Major General Beale (Terry O'Quinn) to allow Rick into consignment.

After his helicopter flight with Jadis, Rick woke up in a military hospital at the C.R.P. (the Civic Republic of Philadelphia). He's spent years working in the outskirts of the city with other consignees, people the Civic Republic's army rescues and then tasks with killing walkers or working in energy, growing food, or water and waste management. After six years of consignment, workers have a path to becoming citizens of the Civic Republic. "Security and secrecy above all. That's the army's code," Rick writes in a letter to Michonne. "So no one can leave, ever."

As it turns out, Okafor protected Rick to recruit him to his covert program with fellow consignee Pearl Thorne (Lesley-Ann Brandt). One year after Rick and Thorne enlist as soldiers in the CRM, Okafor reveals his plans for Sgt. Maj. Grimes and Sgt. Maj. Thorne: to become leaders and join force command within the Civic Republic Military. Okafor needs leaders to help him change the CRM from the inside, explaining why Rick and Thorne -- both designated as "A's" -- were allowed into consignment and the military. (A's are people with strengths, and B's are everyday people just trying to survive. B's get in; A's are sent away and killed to be used as test subjects for the CRM's secret zombie experiments.)

Other CRM secrets will be declassified when Rick and Thorne move up the ranks and receive the top-secret Echelon Briefing: "All the info, the whys, the things 90% of our force doesn't know about and 100% of our city doesn't." Okafor believes that A's who become soldiers will become leaders who can change the CRM, which has been carrying out clandestine "tactical military operations" that eliminated the Omaha Safe-Zone (population: 97,407) and Campus Colony (population: 9,671) communities with a green liquid chlorine gas on World Beyond. With a force of 17,000, this is their chance to save the world.

"He wanted to change things, change the army without them even knowing it. And he wanted my help to do it. I'd play along, but it wasn't my fight," Rick writes in his letter. "Everything was about secrets. The army kept the city a secret at all costs. Everything the army did was secret to the city. And then there were the soldiers with those blood-red stripes keeping what they did a secret to the whole force. Secrets on secrets."

Okafor keeps secrets from Rick, too. He found the message in the bottle that Rick tossed into the water during his escape to Rat Island (in The Walking Dead series finale) and learned about Rick's wife and daughter, and then used that intel to track down Rick's home at the Alexandria Safe-Zone. If Rick were to escape, CRM protocol would have dispatched Okafor to find and kill his charge, Michonne, and anyone else who knew about the Civic Republic in the name of operational security. Security and secrecy above all.

Rick contemplates suicide when he learns that escape puts his family in danger. Okafor moves Rick to Logistics with Thorne to help convert a college in the Cascades to a battle-ready forward operating base where CRM brass will convene for a summit in one year. Rick and Thorne spend the next 12 months converting the college into the CRM Cascades base, and by the time its completed, it's been eight years since the bridge.

"I love you so much. I love you so, so much. I tried. Please just know I tried," Rick writes in a letter to Michonne that he then burns with phones etched with drawings of Michonne and Judith. "I tried... but I failed." There's no escape for the living.

New episodes of The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live premiere Sundays on AMC and AMC+. Stay tuned to ComicBook/TWD and follow on Facebook for more TWD Universe coverage.

The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live, AMC's new Walking Dead spinoff, begins with Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) about to die by suicide. "I tried. Please know I tried," a despairing Rick intones in voice over. In one hand: an old cell phone etched with a drawing of his wife, Michonne (Danai Gurira). In the other hand: a piece of broken glass he presses against his neck. On Rick's television, a Civic Republic news anchor recounts a city falling to a walker incursion. He sighs, scoffs, and... he'll keep trying. Rick Grimes lives.

A flashback to FIVE YEARS AFTER THE BRIDGE. Consignee Grimes is tethered by the wrist to a black-clad soldier of the Civic Republic Military. Against the backdrop of a fleet of CRM helicopters and glowing red lights, Rick and other leashed CRM consignees wearing jackets with the three-ring symbol are on a voluntary assignment to handle a level-three hazardous event. By eliminating the advance of ignited "delts" -- walkers set ablaze by a fire -- they're protecting crops and food stores for the more than 200,000 people living in the C.R.P.: the Civic Republic of Philadelphia.

Rick runs as far as the tether allows him before he's yanked to the ground. Rick undoes his belt, wraps it around his arm as a tourniquet, readies his ax, and tells himself: "This is how." Then Rick chops off his left hand and makes a run for it into the zombie-filled woods. "Consignee Grimes is breaking protocol," a CRM soldier yells out, chasing after the fleeing amputee. Bleeding out, Rick stabs his ax into a delt's brain and shoves his bloody stump into its smoldering corpse to cauterize his wound. And he almost gets away... until the CRM soldier shoots Rick with a taser that incapacitates his charge.

As he drifts in and out of consciousness, hazy memories flood his mind. Burning crops. Wind turbines that turn into the whirring blades of a helicopter. Alexandria's jail cell. A farm house lit by the glow of flames. Rick and Michonne yell out to each other as the bridge filled with walkers explodes. In another lifetime, Rick and Michonne meet as strangers on a park bench. He's lost, so she points him in the right direction. "You'll get there," she tells him. "I believe in you." Rick asks the friendly stranger dressed in a purple business suit if she works in the area. "It's not where I want to be," she replies. "Are you where you wanna be?"

Rick wakes up. Back in this lifetime, Rick writes a letter to Michonne. "I always thought I would wait to tell you everything when we were finally back together, that it'd just be a story on the porch after the sun went down, when we could barely see each other, but I have to tell you now. Not everything. I can't face everything. This is most of it, but all of it... it was always about getting back to you." Inside Rick's bag are old cell phones with drawings of Michonne and Judith on the glass.

"What happened on the bridge, I didn't think I'd survive. And I woke up in a military hospital. An army found me, a force of thousands, protecting a working, hidden city of hundreds of thousands. Security and secrecy above all. That's the army's code. So no one can leave ever. The city governs itself, completely separate from the military. But it follows that one rule, that law from outside the walls. The people they rescue, they work in the outskirts, killing walkers for energy or growing food or managing the water, the waste."

In post-apocalyptic Philadelphia, Consignee Grimes spends his years clearing delts for the CRM. "After six years of it, they get into the city, away from the army, from the outskirts. They're called consignees. And I was one of them, but I was never gonna go in. I was gonna get away. I was gonna get back to you. God damn it, I was." Consignee Grimes is the charge of CRM Lt. Col. Donald Okafor (Craig Tate), who reminds Rick: "I lobby the head of what is most likely the most powerful military of the planet on your behalf. I am possibly the best friend you ever had."

Okafor spoke with Major General Beale about Rick moving up the ranks, but Rick thinks slumming it out in the outskirts gives him a better chance at escape. "It doesn't," Okafor says. "It just gives you another chance to die." Okafor, his face scarred after an encounter with someone like Rick, believes Consignee Grimes is better suited for his program.

"First time I tried, the army didn't know what to do with me. Because no one tries to escape. No one wants to. Would they put me in jail? Kill me? A lieutenant colonel named Okafor, he convinced them to keep me a consignee, and I kept trying to escape. But I couldn't. I couldn't get back to you. I kept trying to get away. So they put me on a leash when we went out into the world. I couldn't get away. I couldn't get back to you. I was trapped. Okafor protected me because he said he saw something in me. He wanted me to join his program, to join their army, to use my life for them."

"I keep on telling you: for people like us, there's no escape for the living," Okafor reminds Rick, telling him it's time to accept things for what they are. "It cost your hand last time. Next time, it's your life. Do something with it." As Rick looks overhead and watches a CRM helicopter armed with bombs fly away, Consignee Pearl Thorne (Lesley-Ann Brandt) throws a glass at Rick and takes a swig from a half-full bottle of whiskey. It's her way of thanking him: "You showed me I can't get away."

The outskirts of the C.R.P. are a lonely place for Rick Grimes. His only friend is fellow consignee Esteban (Frankie Quinones), a joker who spent two years getting Rick to talk. On a bench facing the Civic Republic across the water, Esteban likens the hidden city to the good life, and the outskirts are Alcatraz. It's Esteban's last day working utilities in the outskirts: starting tomorrow, he'll be inside the Civic Republic's air-conditioned walls with a promotion to Deputy Manager of Water and Power of Ward 3. After six long years, his consignment is over. Rick congratulates Esteban on his citizenship and thanks him "for whatever the hell this is." With Okafor attempting to recruit Rick into the CRM, Esteban suggests he enlist and then make his next move when he's outside the walls.

Rick is fitted with an all-black prosthetic hand that matches his all-black CRM gear. He trains in hand-to-hand combat with his fellow soldier-in-training, Thorne, and trains as a helicopter pilot operating a flight simulator. It's all under the watchful eye of CRM Major General Beale (Terry O'Quinn), who receives a salute from Sergeant Majors Rick Grimes. In a CRM helicopter, Rick is Okafor's co-pilot. "Is this the end of it and the start of something else?" Okafor asks. "It's the end," Rick replies, "and the start."

In the ruins of a stadium, Okafor conspires with Sgt. Maj. Grimes and Sgt. Maj. Thorne. It's been a year since Thorne and Rick enlisted with the CRM, but Okafor's secret program isn't about Thorne and Rick becoming soldiers. "It's about you two becoming leaders," he explains, and he's going to help them become part of CRM force command. "I tried to escape four times," Rick reminds him. "I tried to kill you," adds Thorne of Okafor's facial scar. And that's why they can help him change the CRM from the inside.

Thorne believes in the operational security of the CRM -- the city runs itself, and the military runs the world outside. It may be civilization, Rick argues, but people can't leave. They're not free. Okafor declassifies the "A" and "B" classification system: "The CRM designates people they find as A's and B's. A's have a strength. A's will die for what they believe in. People follow A's. The people we cross in the world, the few we bring in, they're classified as B's. Everyday people who are just trying to survive. B's get in. A's are sent away and killed, except you two." Rick was an "A" before Jadis/Anne (Pollyanna McIntosh) branded him a "B" when she fished him out of the riverbank back at the bridge.

Okafor needs strong leaders like Rick and Thorne. "A's" who become soldiers, who become leaders, are the only thing that can change the CRM from the inside. "Being the monster to fight the monsters, that can't last," says Okafor, who carried out the bombings of Atlanta and Los Angeles as part of the U.S. military's sunset protocols and Operation Cobalt. They'll learn the rest of the CRM secrets when they move up the ranks and receive the Echelon Briefing: "The whys, the things 90% of our force doesn't know about and 100% of our city doesn't." When Rick questions why he'd go along with Okafor's secret briefings if he's an "A," his superior answers: "Because I believe if either one of you had a chance to save the world, you would."

"He wanted to change things, change the army without them even knowing it," Rick writes in his letter to Michonne. "And he wanted my help to do it. I'd play along, but it wasn't my fight." Thorne threatens to kill Rick if he risks her future with the CRM, revealing she was a submarine worker in the South African Navy when Okafor fished her out of the Atlantic Ocean. Thorne fired the shot that grazed Okafor's face when he ruined her attempt to get home, but she's come to accept she'll never see her "someone" ever again. Rick refuses to believe that the people they want to get back to are gone, including his wife. "She's not. They aren't," Thorne says through gritted teeth. "We are."

"Early on, the army had found two other cities, Portland and Omaha. Not as big, not as sophisticated, and not keeping themselves secret. All three cities became an alliance, even though two don't know where the third is. The world is so much bigger than we knew, Michonne, so much better, and so much worse."

Rick meets with Beale, who reveals that the CRM was once the Pennsylvania National Guard. Okafor was with the Air Force when the military bombed Atlanta with napalm and went AWOL rather than carry out orders to bomb Philadelphia. Okafor switched sides, bombing 4,000 Marines at Lincoln Financial Field. Beale then tells Rick that he and Thorne would never have been allowed into the CRM if not for Okafor, who vouched for them to be let into consignment and then the army. When Beale asks if Okafor is up to anything he should know about, Rick lies: No. "You tried to escape four times. Why are you here?" Beale asks. "Do you want to kill? To die? Or is all this just another attempt to escape?" Rick has Beale look into his eyes... and has his answer.

"Everything was about secrets. The army kept the city a secret at all costs. Everything the army did was secret to the city. And then there were the soldiers with those blood-red stripes keeping what they did a secret to the whole force. Secrets on secrets. And the only thing I cared about was holding onto mine."

After another secret meeting with Okafor and Thorne, Rick keeps his own secret: he's studying blue prints for Civic Republic water lines and sewage access tunnels. Rick refuses to stop trying to get home. Esteban, now Ward 3 Water Manager, tips him off to a tunnel that will take Rick due east to a junction about a mile out and provides the code to a padlocked gate. "I have to keep trying. I won't stop," Rick says. "I'm getting there. I'm getting home, or I'm dying. That's it."

It's during a CRM resource run to the Gen-Klor Chemicals plant with Thorne that Rick makes another escape attempt. Rick takes a walker body, cuts off its hand, and leaves it to burn with his dog tags to make it look like Rick died at the abandoned chemical plant. "'There's no escape for the living,' so I had to make sure they thought I was dead." Ruining Rick's plan is a little girl (Alexis Rae Forlenza), whose family were turned into undead delts taken out by the CRM. Rick saves the girl from walkers, but he's forced to abandon his escape attempt when Thorne locates the evacuee. Rick asks Thorne for her help, and she gives it: "He would have found you, and whoever you're running to. He knows about you, Grimes." The resource extraction complete, the CRM rolls out... with Sgt. Maj. Grimes in tow.

Back at base, Rick sneaks into Okafor's room and presses a blade to his throat. He interrogates the Lt. Col. and finds out that Okafor confiscated the message in a bottle that Rick tossed into the water on Rat Island during his third escape (in The Walking Dead series finale). "'I think of the dead all the time,'" Okafor begins, revealing he learned Michonne's name from the note. "Who f---ing knows?" Rick growls. Okafor answers, "Michonne is an unusual name. Not many people out there, but if you start the search around where we picked you up... that's potent information."

Okafor tells Rick that if he escaped the CRM, they would send him to clean up his mess and finally erase Rick. "You are my charge. I'm the one who'd have to kill you and Michonne and anyone else you ran into out there. Just knowing about this--" before Okafor can say anymore, Rick kicks him in the face. He doesn't care why Okafor's red-striped soldiers come back covered in blood or why the helicopters go out with bombs that don't come back. He doesn't care about the Civic Republic or its people. He cares about his wife, and his daughter, and making his own choices that will get him home. Okafor tells Rick he lost everything, including his wife: she was one of the 4,000 Marines who died when Okafor refused to "liquidate" Philly. When Okafor gets the upper hand, Rick urges Okafor to let him go. That doesn't work, so Rick puts Okafor's gun to his head. "Do it. Please." But Okafor won't pull the trigger. Rick Grimes lives another day.

Rick is moved to Logistics with Thorne, where he'll spend the next 12 months converting a college in the Cascades into a forward operating base for the CRM Frontliners. In one year, all of the military's top commanders will convene at a summit there to open the base. Okafor calls it Rick's path to the higher echelons of power, but Rick doesn't want power. "That's the thing," Okafor says. "You already have it."

In Rick's apartment, Thorne turns on the television to the news broadcast from the beginning of the episode. It's reported that the Alliance of Three is now an alliance of two: Omaha has fallen, and nearly 90,000 people are dead (events that happened on The Walking Dead: World Beyond). Thorne believes that Omaha fell because the safe-zone wasn't a secret, reaffirming her believe that what the CR is doing is right. She then tells Rick that the little girl they saved at the chemical plant was the last survivor of her family. The girl hid from the delts for two days before stepping out to die when they found her.

"You and me and that girl, we all want to be somewhere else, with someone else, but we got stuck in the right place. We did," Thorne says. "And you are gonna see that someday. I'm not sorry I stopped you. I'm not sorry I saved your life, even when you didn't want it to be saved." Before she leaves, she drinks to there being "one more good man in this world. One more good man to try and save the world... whether he wants to or not." Rick considers suicide -- after all, there's no escape for the living -- but writes one last letter to Michonne.

"I thought about ending it, just stopping it all. But then -- then it would just be nothing, wouldn't it? All of it, for nothing. I couldn't do it, but I still decided to die. I've been writing you letters the whole time, reaching out, to feel something, writing just to imagine you could read them. This is my last one. The last letter I write to you that you'll never see. I love you. I don't see the dead anymore, or the ones I lost, or the sun, the sky, or the water. I don't see you anymore. I just see what's ahead. Metal rotors and gun oil and blood. What I have to do, what I can do to help save the world, even if you don't know I ever did that."

Another year passes as Rick and Thorne convert the old college in the Cascades into an operational CRM base. "I love you so much. I love you so, so much. I tried. Please just know I tried." Rick holds his letter, and his phones with drawings of Michonne and Judith, and throws them into the fire inside an oil drum. Burning away his old life. "I tried... but I failed."

Rick's dreams of Michonne throughout the episode culminate in that other life where he's stuck at a dead-end job who has lunchtime rendezvous with Michonne. "You're not stuck anywhere," she tells him, admitting she's not where she wants to be, either. "But I'm not stuck. We can make this whole damn world ours if we want to." They kiss... and then this happy dream is consumed by flames, spinning wind turbines, the whirring of helicopter blades, and burning crops.

NOW. Sgt. Maj. Rick Grimes co-pilots a helicopter with Lt. Col. Okafor, who mentions that Rick hardly talks anymore. "I've been thinking about this night when I was a kid. 7 years old. I was thirsty, couldn't sleep, so I went to get some water. Old house, squeaky floorboards, trying not to wake my family," Rick recalls, explaining his recurring nightmare of the burning farmhouse. "I was on the stairs... and I saw a light in the kitchen. It was orange. The crops were burning. I was so scared, I couldn't move. Then, my dad was there. He looked like a monster. Half his body was burnt, but he was there to get me out. He said I didn't need to be scared, that it was just the burning, that the flames were protecting the plants for the next harvest. He said, 'It may look like the end of the world, but it's only just the beginning.' He was so certain, so steady, and... it made me calm. I believed him."

Rick's father survived, and the Grimes' got a new barn and a new house. "Next year, the harvest was the best it ever was. Years later, after my dad died, my mother told me... that it wasn't lightning. That he lit the fire. That the farm was gonna fail... and what he did saved it. He saved us," Rick says. "And it just rocked me. I thought he was the most honest man I knew. My mother said what he did wasn't right. She said that the scars and the pain, it just reminded him... that he saved us. I'm in."

Okafor knows that Rick is the right thing for his plan -- no more "A's and B's, no more Omahas." He then tells Rick, "When you get to that point, swear on the sword. Don't let it take. You'll know." Just then, Okafor is KIA by a whooshing projectile that penetrates the helicopter and impales him. Another explosion rocks the blood-covered chopper, sending it crashing to the ground. Rick radios the base and the soldiers hit their PRBs to send an alert to the downed helicopter, but their attacker is on them.

Another missile takes out two of Rick's soldiers. Then another projectile sends the CRM soldiers flying. A helmeted woman with a sword approaches the soldiers, removing their helmets and slitting their throats. Rick goes for his gun, but the helmeted samurai kicks it out of his hand and swings her sword. The blow is deflected by Rick's gauntlet, and the fight ends with the sword to Rick's throat. The samurai removes the CRM soldier's helmet... revealing the face of the man she lost eight years ago. It's Michonne, in the flesh. Not a dream.

She found him.

Stay tuned to ComicBook/TWD and follow on Facebook for more TWD Universe coverage.

Ryan Murphy is known for creating many big television series, and lots of fans know him best for his contribution to the world of horror. Not only did he bring American Horror Story to life, but he's also produced projects such as Scream Queens, Ratched, American Crime Story, Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, The Watcher, and much more. Murphy is known for working with a lot of the same actors, and soon he'll be re-teaming up with Niecy Nash-Betts (Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story) and Courtney B. Vance (American Crime Story) for Grotesquerie. Murphy took to social media this week to introduce the cast, which will also include Lesley Manville (The Crown).

"Grotesquerie," Murphy captioned a video, which features the names of the show's cast and some voiceover from Nash-Betts' character. "I don't know when it started, I can't put my finger on it, but it's different now," she says. "There's been a shift, like something's opening up in the world - a kind of hole that descends into a nothingness. You say, 'Well, hon, evil has always existed,' that 'things are getting better, there's never been a better time to be alive!' ... it's not getting better! Something's happening around us, and nobody sees it but me." You can check out the video below:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Ryan Murphy Productions (@ryanmurphyproductions)

According to Deadline, Grotesquerie is expected to begin production in the fall.

When Does American Horror Story Return?

The 12th season of American Horror Story, Delicate, premiered last fall, but the WGA and SAG strikes of 2023 caused delays in production. FX recently confirmed that American Horror Story: Delicate Part 2 will premiere on April 3rd.

Based on Danielle Valentine's novel Delicate Condition, in American Horror Story: Delicate, "After multiple failed attempts at IVF, actress Anna Victoria Alcott wants nothing more than to start a family. As the buzz around her recent film grows, she fears that something may be targeting her -- and her pursuit of motherhood." The season stars Emma Roberts, Cara Delevingne, Kim Kardashian, Denis O'Hare, Billie Lourd, Leslie Grossman, Annabelle Dexter-Jones, Julie White, Michaela Jae Rodriguez, Matt Czuchry, Odessa A'zion, and Zachary Quinto."

"It is essentially a horror novel about pregnancy," Valentine previously shared with Entertainment Weekly about her book. "It's a novel exploring not just the actual physical gruesomeness of what pregnancy is, but also the medical gaslighting that even modern, very privileged women experience as they're going through their pregnancies and the symptoms that I feel we as a culture still don't talk about for strange reasons."

She continued, "[Alien is] really a movie about pregnancy, but it's been written by a man who doesn't understand that that's what he's writing about ... It's what happens when a guy thinks, 'What's the scariest possible thing I can come up with?' And it's this idea of, what if you're growing this creature inside of you and it's using your resources to get bigger and you can't control it? It has a mind of its own, and then one day it just bursts out of you in this gruesome, bloody mess. When I first saw it when I was a kid, it didn't occur to me that that's basically what pregnancy is, but at six months pregnant, I'm like, 'Oh, wow! That's just a pregnancy story without the pregnancy.' That was the seed right there."

Stay tuned for more updates about Ryan Murphy's projects.

Eight years. That's how much time has passed since season 9 of The Walking Dead separated Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) and Michonne (Danai Gurira), who watched Rick sacrifice himself by blowing up a bridge to save his family and friends from a herd of walkers. (Rick survived the bridge and was airlifted away in a CRM helicopter.) The series then jumped six years into the future to reveal an older Judith Grimes (Cailey Fleming) and her little brother: Michonne and Rick's son, RJ (Antony Azor).

In real time, it's been more than five years since Lincoln departed the flagship series in 2018; Gurira exited the mothership a season later in 2020. After all those years gone "bye," Lincoln and Gurira are returning as Rick and Michonne in new Walking Dead spinoff The Ones Who Live, a six-episode event series premiering Feb. 25 on AMC.

If you stopped watching seasons ago or need a quick refresher, here's everything you need to know to get caught up. (Read our CRM crash course about the Civic Republic Military, our guide on all the ways to watch the new series, and everything else you need to know about The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live.)

The Bridge

19 months after Rick defeated and then spared Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) to end the war with the Saviors, Rick and Michonne were building Carl's (Chandler Riggs) vision for a better future: the new world. As Michonne established a charter between the newly unified people of Alexandria, the Hilltop, the Kingdom, Oceanside, and Sanctuary, Rick oversaw construction on a bridge that would connect all the communities.

After legions of the dead merged into a massive walker herd that threatened to overrun and destroy their civilization, Daryl (Norman Reedus) suggested bringing down the bridge and washing the zombies out to sea. Rick refused to sacrifice the bridge at first... only to sacrifice himself by leading the walkers to the bridge and blowing it up to save his family and friends.

Rick appeared to die in the explosion but was found on alive on a riverbank by Jadis/Anne (Pollyanna McIntosh), who radioed a CRM helicopter that she had a "B." The helicopter with the three-ring symbol airlifted an injured Rick away from Virginia to parts unknown.

Episode: Season 9, Episode 5, "What Comes After"

The Body

In a flashback to about eight months after Rick's disappearance, Daryl and a pregnant Michonne scoured the woods for Rick's body. Daryl refused to return to Alexandria unless he found something, but their exhaustive search only turned up Rick's gun: his mud-covered Colt Python. "Ain't gonna stop looking," Daryl told Michonne of a hunt that took him to the ocean and back. "Not ever."

Episode: Season 9, Episode 14, "Scars"

The Baby

Six years after the bridge, a time skip revealed Michonne and Rick's son, Rick "RJ" Grimes Jr. (The Richonne baby was conceived when Rick suggested "another way to build for the future" in the season 9 episode "Warning Signs.")

Episode: Season 9, Episode 6, "Who Are You Now?"

The Bag

Years after the bridge, Consignee Rick Grimes escaped the Civic Republic of Philadelphia with a handful of possessions: a kill stick, canned food with the three-ring symbol of the CRM, a journal, his cowboy boots, and a phone etched with Japanese lettering and drawings of Michonne and Judith. Rick tossed his bag onto a boat -- marked with the numbers 672 -- before he was recaptured by a CRM helicopter.

Episode: Season 11, Episode 24, "Rest in Peace"

The Boat

Six years after the bridge, Michonne embarked on a mission to a naval base on Bloodsworth Island, Maryland, where Virgil (Kevin Carroll) claimed to know the locations of weapons and munitions to help the survivors in their war against the Whisperers. Instead, Michonne came across boat 672, which Virgil said washed up on the shore during a big storm.

Michonne found Rick's boots, the phone, and a logbook documenting the boat's journey from Tampa Bay, Florida, to Hopewell, Virginia, and then Bridgers Shipyard in New Jersey.

Episode: Season 10, Episode 13, "What We Become"

The Brave Man

Michonne (code name "Daito") reached Judith (code name "Shoto") and RJ (code name "Little Brave Man") over walkie-talkie to tell her children that she found "the Brave Man's" belongings. "If you think he's alive," Judith answered back, "then you have to go find him." Michonne wanted to head home to Alexandria, but Judith urged her to find Rick and bring him home. "What if he needs you more? What if he's trying to come home, too, but no one will help?"

Michonne said she would try and would head north to New Jersey, promising to try to reach Judith on the walkie for as long as she could. Judith told her mom: "Go get him."

Episode: Season 10, Episode 13, "What We Become"

The Belongings

After encountering a mass migration of survivors somewhere between Maryland and New Jersey, Michonne was seen with Rick's bag in the coda sequence ending The Walking Dead series finale. Michonne was years behind Rick, but their timelines will soon intersect on The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live.

Episode: Season 11, Episode 24, "Rest in Peace"

Stay tuned to ComicBook/TWD and follow on Facebook for more TWD Universe coverage.

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre may not have gotten a new update this week, but its players still have quite a bit of content to check out outside of the occasional patch notes. This week, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre game from Sumo Nottingham and Gun Media got another DLC filled with executions for members of The Family as well as another DLC that changes up how different weapons look. The Victims unfortunately didn't get anything out of these DLCs unless you count them being able to see the new Shirtless Johnny skin that's been released as DLC, too, but all players at least got a bonus XP weekend regardless of if they're Victim or Family players as well as a Free Play Days weekend on Xbox to possibly bring in more players.

Again, that's a lot going on, so let's take a look at the new DLCs first. All those can be seen below along with details on how you can make them yours.

Texas Chain Saw Massacre Executions and Skins

New ways to hunt are coming to The Texas Chain Saw Massacre with a new Execution Pack and Weapon Skins dropping on 2/22/24. pic.twitter.com/0XsGfc1pwP

-- The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (@TXChainSawGame) February 20, 2024

The trailer above shows off not only the new executions included in the Slaughter Family Execution Pack 2 that was released this week but also the new weapons that make up the Weapon Skin Variants DLC. While the trailer shows off both of those extras for The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, they're unfortunately not included in the same DLC, so you'll have to buy them separately at $4.99 for the weapons and $6.99 for the executions. One of these executions and one of the weapons are both for Nancy, a DLC member of The Family, so those who already own her will get the most out of these DLCs.

Separate from these executions and the weapons are two additional skins that were added to the game this week, too. One is Shirtless Johnny while the other is Bride Nancy, but the good news for players who are big on those characters is that both of these skins are free, so you should see them available in-game the next time you play.

Execution Pack 2, Weapon Skins and new cosmetics are out NOW! Shirtless Johnny and Bride Sissy are free and available to everyone. pic.twitter.com/9zdslx5sZT

-- The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (@TXChainSawGame) February 22, 2024

While not quite as exciting as new executions and skins, the game is also running a Double XP event. This event is live now and is scheduled to end on February 25th unlike some other Double XP events which start around Thursday and continue into Monday, so players only have the two days to take advantage of the event.

The big last update that the game got was released early in February, so another may be coming soon with a new set of patch notes. Either way, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre players will definitely be hearing more from Gun Media next week in the wake of this week's announcement. Sumo Nottingham announced that it's moving on from The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and that a new developer would be taking over soon, but Gun hasn't yet named which studio will lead future development of the game.

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre players got a surprising update this week from developer Sumo Nottingham with the studio announcing its plans to stop working on the asymmetrical horror game. It wasn't specified when this would happen, but Sumo Nottingham said it would be wrapping up its work on the game "shortly." The good news for active Texas Chain Saw Massacre players, however, is that work on the game will continue under the lead of a new developer, though Gun Interactive hasn't yet announced which developer will be taking the lead on Texas Chain Saw Massacre moving forward.

This news was surprising for a number of reasons including the fact that the game hasn't even out for a year yet, so this makes for a relatively quick transition from one developer to another. Work on the game has been underway since release with Texas Chain Saw Massacre getting a number of updates since last August with the most recent of those released just this month. DLC for the game was also just released this week.

#SumoNottingham @TXChainSawGame @fearthegun pic.twitter.com/pjVKd6P6EW

-- Sumo Nottingham (@NottinghamSumo) February 23, 2024

"The Sumo Nottingham team will shortly be hanging up their chainsaws and traps as their work on The Texas Chain Saw Massacre comes to an end," the message from Sumo Nottingham said this week. "The team will be working closely with the incoming developer to ensure a smooth and efficient handoff, with no interruption to the players. We'd like to thank Gun Interactive for being fantastic partners for the last four years, and for giving our horror-loving team the opportunity to sink their meat hooks into this iconic title. The Studio is looking forward to sharing its next exciting project with you all in due course."

Questions naturally came about after that statement. Why is Sumo Nottingham exiting the game? Is that move something planned all along since the game's release, or is it a decision based on more recent events? Perhaps most pressing of all, which developer will take over the work on the game moving forward?

Some of those questions are probably easier to answer than others, but we'll at least be getting some answers next week. In a reply to a Twitter user who asked which studio would take over the game, Gun Interactive said "We'll talk about the future next week" but that the focus would be on the work Sumo Nottingham had already done, for now. Another reply reassured Texas Chain Saw Massacre players about the future of the game.

This does not change the plans for The Texas Chain Saw Massacre in terms of support, content, or longevity.

-- Gun (@fearthegun) February 23, 2024

"This does not change the plans for The Texas Chain Saw Massacre in terms of support, content, or longevity," Gun said.

While not exactly the same scenario, this isn't the first time that Gun has been involved in a game like this where development changes hands. Prior to The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Gun published Friday the 13th: The Game which was developed by IllFonic. Not long after it was announced in 2018 that the game would receive no more new content, IllFonic announced its departure from the game with Black Tower Studios confirming that it'd take over development.

Doug Bradley last brought his iconic Cenobite "Pinhead" to life for 2005's Hellraiser: Hellworld, and while 2022's Hellraiser cast Jamie Clayton as the figure, Bradley admitted that he hasn't definitively put the character in his rearview. With no updates about the franchise since the release of the last film, it's entirely unknown what the direction of the franchise will be in the future, so whether an opportunity for Bradley to return could manifest is yet to be seen. Bradley did admit, however, that the heavy prosthetics required to take on the look of the character make such a return seem unlikely, as 40 years have passed since he debuted as the figure.

"I certainly never say never. I've never said I was done with it. I've never said I'm retired from it ... "I'm sensible about these things, too. I was in my mid-30s when I first played the character, and I was just turning 50 when I played him the last time. I ain't in that age range anymore. I'm now in my 70th year, and to some extent I think special effects makeup is a younger man's game," Bradley shared with Bloody Disgusting. The actor did suggest Clive Barker's The Scarlet Gospels would be the best material for him to bring to life, as he expressed, "If we did that, we could maybe present an older Pinhead to be aware of the fact that I am the age I am, that time and gravity does what time and gravity does. An older, darker Pinhead would intrigue me, one not so much in love with the flippant one-liners and the witty comebacks and so forth."

He continued, "That would be the perfect bookend to my life in latex, if I can put it that way ... I've never turned my back completely on the character, but realistically, I think that's probably that, and that's fine. I'm proud of what we did with the movies, and I'm proud of my work in it. I'm cool with being where I am now."

Bradley starred as the iconic Cenobite in the first eight entries in the series, with Stephan Smith Collins playing the role in Hellraiser: Revelations and Paul T. Taylor playing the role in Hellraiser: Judgment.

In addition to 2022's Hellraiser, Halloween trilogy and The Exorcist: Believer director David Gordon Green was at one point developing a TV series focusing on the concept, though no updates have been given on that project in years.

Stay tuned for updates on the possible future of the Hellraiser franchise.

Would you like to see Bradley back in the role? Let us know in the comments or contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter or on Instagram to talk all things Star Wars and horror!

After Winnie the Pooh entered the public domain, Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey was released and had a surprisingly successful run at the box office. Now, the microbudget film is getting a sequel. The first installment earned its spot in some "worst movies of all time" lists and managed to get a 3% critics score and 50% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, but the bear is back in a big way. A trailer for the film was released earlier this month, and new character posters are showcasing the scary versions of the animals from 100-Acre-Wood, including Pooh, Piglet, Owl, and Tigger.

You can read the official synopsis for Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey 2 here: "Deep within the 100-Acre-Wood, a destructive rage grows as Winnie-the-Pooh, Piglet, Owl, and Tigger find their home and their lives endangered after Christopher Robin revealed their existence. Not wanting to live in the shadows any longer, the group decides to take the fight to the town of Ashdown, home of Christopher Robin, leaving a bloody trail of death and mayhem in their wake. Winnie and his savage friends will show everyone that they are deadlier, stronger, and smarter than anyone could ever imagine and get their revenge on Christopher Robin, once and for all."

You can check out the new character posters below:

Pooh:

Owl:

Piglet:

Tigger:

The Whole Gang:

Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey Filmmakers Talk Future Plans:

In an interview with THR, Blood and Honey 2 filmmakers Rhys Frake-Waterfield and Scott Jeffrey teased a better sequel.

"Number two is better than number one in every single aspect. Because we've gone into this knowing on what platform scale it's going, whereas in the first one, we didn't really have much of an idea. We obviously didn't expect it to go to the masses it did. This time we've gone into it knowing that will happen, so a lot more time can be dedicated towards it. I've not really worked on anything else this year. And that's why all areas are now a massive jump up compared to the first," Frake-Waterfield shared.

"For example, the look of the creatures is quite an important thing," he continued. "Before we had a mask bought online, some cleaning gloves from the shop downstairs, and a red lumberjack shirt from Amazon. The whole monster was about ?630 ($770). But this time we have people doing the prosthetics -- it's a company that has worked on Harry Potter's Voldemort and Star Wars. And they've been in charge of the redesigns of the creature. And that's why Pooh looks a bit more scary. There's an extra level of detail there."

Stay tuned for updates on Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey 2 before it screens in theaters.

Michael Bay is set to produce the new film Drop in partnership with Blumhouse Productions and Platinum Dunes, which is set to have Happy Death Day and Freaky director Christopher Landon at the helm and will star The White Lotus's Meghann Fahy. No plot details about the project have been released, but Deadline notes that it is being described as a "fast-paced thriller." The script was written by Jillian Jacobs and Chris Roach, who previously wrote Truth or Dare and Fantasy Island for Blumhouse. The film doesn't currently have a release date but is just one of many Blumhouse productions on the horizon.

Landon has slowly but surely been making a name for himself in the horror genre over the past decade. While he wrote a number of entries in the Paranormal Activity series, directing Happy Death Day helped put him on the map and showcased his skills at blending horror with comedy, as he would go on to return for the sequel Happy Death Day 2U. He followed that with the body-switching horror-comedy Freaky, which was released during the pandemic and suffered financially from limited theatrical availability. His next effort continued to blend genres, offering up We Have a Ghost on Netflix, which starred Anthony Mackie and David Harbour.

His skills at finding the right tonal balance between humor and horror led to him securing the gig of taking over the Scream franchise with Scream 7, though shortly after star Melissa Barrera was fired from the project, Landon similarly exited the sequel.

This is only the latest project Landon has become attached to, as he was also announced as directing the upcoming werewolf movie Big Bad. Based on the short story of the same name by Chandler Baker, Big Bad is described, "The Strauss family is on knife's edge. Sam is a resentful stay-at-home dad. Rachel feels the restlessness in her blood returning. Their children are getting out of hand. And a recent mudslide has forced the wolves out of the woods to look for food. As dusk falls and tensions rise, the family must come together to survive the night -- from the threats outside and those within."

While it's possible that Landon's schedule is about to get quite busy, it's also possible that he has since parted ways with Big Bad.

Stay tuned for updates on Drop.

Are you looking forward to the new movie? Let us know in the comments or contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter or on Instagram to talk all things Star Wars and horror!

"Security and secrecy above all" is the motto of the CRM: the Civic Republic Military. The three-ring helicopter group that airlifted an injured Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) away on season 9 of The Walking Dead is shrouded in secrecy, but spinoffs Fear the Walking Dead and The Walking Dead: World Beyond shed light on the mysterious organization that calls itself "the last light of the world." The black-clad helmeted soldiers return in The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live -- with Rick among their ranks. When the new series premieres Feb. 25 on AMC, burning questions about Rick's whereabouts will be answered and CRM secrets will be declassified.

Here is your CRM crash course for everything you need to know about the Walking Dead Universe villains.

The Helicopter

After waking up from a coma in the "Days Gone Bye" pilot episode of The Walking Dead, Rick witnessed a still-operational helicopter when he trekked into post-apocalyptic Atlanta on horseback. He wouldn't see another helicopter until he watched a black chopper fly overhead in The Walking Dead season 8 episode 5, "The Big Scary U."

The "A"

"We take. We don't bother," Scavenger leader Jadis (Pollyanna McIntosh) told Rick when the group tracked the missing Father Gabriel (Seth Gilliam) to a junkyard in The Walking Dead season 7 episode "New Best Friends," where a helipad was visible among the Heaps (more on that later). After Jadis captured Rick in season 8 episode 6, "The King, the Widow, and Rick," she imprisoned him inside a storage container marked with an "A."

The Three-Rings Symbol

The symbol with the three interconnected rings first appeared on canned food in the possession of the junkyard-dwelling Jadis in season 8 episode 10, "The Lost and the Plunderers." Savior Simon (Steven Ogg) questioned Jadis about the helipad and the solar panels, but Jadis said only that the Heaps was "a dump."

Season 8 episode 14, "Still Gotta Mean Something," revealed Jadis lived inside a storage container converted into clean living quarters well-supplied with cans of applesauce... and a suitcase. Jadis prepared another "A" -- a captured Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) -- and then signaled the helicopter with the three-ring symbol, but it departed without her.

"A" or "B"

In season 9 episode 2, "The Bridge," Jadis spotted a helicopter circling in the night sky. In season 9 episode 3, "Warning Signs," she reached a helicopter pilot over walkie talkie. "What do you have? An 'A' or a 'B'?" the pilot asked, telling her: "No pickups. But the deal still stands. Do you have an 'A' or a 'B'?"

Jadis responded that she had nothing to trade. The helicopter pilot told her she would need an "A" in exchange for extraction.

The Hidden City

Jadis later confessed to Father Gabriel that she traded people for food and supplies. "Gabriel, leave with me. There's another place. It's far from here, but if we go together we can get there," she told him of this secret civilization where they could "have a life like you can't imagine." It was the first indirect mention of the Civic Republic, a hidden city of over 200,000 survivors. But when he went to alert Rick, Jadis knocked Gabriel out and said: "All this time... I thought you were a 'B.'" (Like Rick and Negan before him, Gabriel was classified as an "A" when Jadis almost had him bitten by a walker.) "There's only one place left for me to go," Jadis told Gabriel, "and you're the price of admission."

The Trade

After Rick led a zombie herd to a bridge he then blew up to save his family and friends, Jadis found him alive in the riverbed. "I have a 'B.' Not an 'A.' I never had an 'A,'" Jadis told the pilot over walkie talkie, adding her "B" was "hurt, but he's strong." The CRM helicopter then shuttled Rick and Jadis away from Virginia. In The Walking Dead: World Beyond episode "Who Are You?," Jadis confirmed she traded Rick to the Civic Republic's army for admission into the CR: "I gave the CRM something very valuable, and I got a new life," she said. "I know that the Civic Republic is the last light of the world, and my purpose is to create a new era on this planet."

The Reclamation Team

Fear the Walking Dead season 5 episode 5, "The End of Everything," saw Althea (Maggie Grace) encounter CRM soldier and pilot Isabelle (Sydney Lemmon) in Texas after she came across drop maps marked with the CRM logo. Isabelle and Beckett (James Armstrong) were part of Ground 17, but per protocol, Isabelle killed Beckett when he became a "threat to operational security."

"Nobody just walks away, let alone with the maps he carried," Isabelle told Al, explaining that the maps "make what we have, what we're working towards, vulnerable." She then warned the journalist: "If you see someone wearing this jacket, you should be afraid. We are a force who are not living for ourselves or for now. You have your stories, already making every day the past. We have the future."

Isabelle managed to call off a "reclamation team," tasked with covering up all traces of the CRM's existence -- no matter who they have to kill. Al later summoned Isabelle to airlift her friends out of the blast zone when nuclear warheads were detonated in the season 6 episode "The Beginning," and in the season 7 episode "Reclamation," Al and Isabelle went AWOL -- going on the run together, knowing that the CRM would "never stop looking" for them. Because no one gets away alive.

The Civic Republic

The CR made its first appearance in The Walking Dead: World Beyond season 1 episode 3, "The Tyger and the Lamb." Among the population of 200,000 was CRM Lt. Col. Elizabeth Kublek (Julia Ormond). "We have energy, water, medicine, transport, the Council, the courts, the schools, culture, currency, an economy, agriculture, manufacturing, law... we are the last light of the world," Kublek revealed. "We are the last hope. And we, us, enable this population of over 200,000 souls to live. To create the future."

In The Walking Dead: World Beyond season 1 episode 4, Elton (Nicolas Cantu) referred to the Civic Republic as "The Hidden City." "If they have technology and agriculture and sophisticated governmental systems, it'd be smart to stay hidden," Elton posited. "Even if it makes others question their motives."

The Alliance of the Three

The Walking Dead: World Beyond revealed that the three-ring symbol represented the Alliance of the Three: the Civic Republic (population: 200,000); Portland, Oregon (population: 87,000); and Omaha, Nebraska (population: 97,407), plus its satellite, the Campus Colony (population: 9,671) in Lincoln, Nebraska. However, the CRM eliminated the Omaha Safe-Zone and the Campus Colony as part of a clandestine military operation ordered by CRM Major General Beale, who was first mentioned by Kublek in the World Beyond pilot episode "Brave."

The CRM claimed that Omaha and the Campus Colony were overrun by the dead, but Jadis -- now CRM Warrant Officer Jadis Stokes -- helped carry out a military operation to wipe out both civilizations with a bioweapon: a lethal green liquid chlorine gas.

The CRC

A conversation between CRM Staff Sergeant Jennifer Mallick (Annet Mahendru) and discharged CRM soldier Dennis (Maximilian Osinski) shed light on the CRM origins. In the World Beyond episode "Quartervois," it was learned that the Civic Republic Military agreed to a transition of power over to the Civic Republic Council (CRC) and the Civilian Government after a decade. But 10 years later, in 2020, CRM Major General Beale requested an emergency delay of civilian oversight due to the tragedies in Nebraska.

Read an excerpt from an issue of The Civic Republic Tribune:

A transition of power from military leadership to full civilian oversight is a bedrock provision of the Civic Republic's Founding Compact, the foundational document that has guided our city to rebuilding humanity for over nine years. Authors of the document were in agreement that military autonomy was imperative for the early survival of the CR, as well as its stabilization in the years to follow.

Project Votus

On World Beyond, it was revealed that Beale and Kublek founded Project Votus: a project that involves studying live test subjects through death to further research on reanimation. At a Civic Republic Research Facility located in Ithaca, New York, the CR recruited scientists like Dr. Leo Bennett (Joe Holt) and Dr. Lyla Belshaw (Natalie Gold) to develop a cure for the zombie virus. While Bennett researched fungi to accelerate the decay of the dead and eradicate "empties," Belshaw's secret zombie experiments used zombie-bitten test subjects that the CRM classified as "As."

Belshaw created the green chlorine gas that was used to suffocate "A" test subjects and, later, was used as a bioweapon in the CRM's "tactical military operation" that destroyed Omaha and the Campus Colony.

The C.R.P.

The Walking Dead's "Rest in Peace" series finale showed Rick wearing a jacket with the three-ring logo. While he never appeared on World Beyond, the episode titled "Foothold" contained clues about Rick's fate: "Consignee Grimes" was put to work culling walkers at a Civic Republic Cull Facility. At these abandoned arenas and stadiums converted into CR decontamination centers, workers clear zombies on a mass scale to give the Civic Republic a foothold and reclaim entire states overrun by the dead.

CRM prisoner Silas (Hal Cumpston) was similarly remanded to one of six decontamination centers in New York state, each operated by trained Civic Republic Military personnel. Rick, however, has spent the past eight years at the C.R.P.: the Civic Republic of Philadelphia. After six years, Consignees have a path for citizenship into the Civic Republic and can enlist in the CRM. But once you're in... you can never escape.

The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live premieres February 25 on AMC and AMC+. Here's everything else you need to know about the new Walking Dead Rick and Michonne show, and here's all the ways to watch.

Stay tuned to ComicBook/TWD and follow on Facebook for more TWD Universe coverage.

With Melissa Barrera's firing from Scream 7, the series will reportedly have to make some major tweaks to the new film's storyline, as star Skeet Ulrich claims that she was set to be the focus of a three-film arc. In 2022's Scream, Barrera's Sam Carpenter became the focal point, as she learned that she was the daughter of Ulrich's Billy Loomis from the original film, with the arc set to explore how she grappled with being the daughter of a murderer. Barrera's exit, as well as on-screen sister Jenna Ortega not appearing in the upcoming film, means the narrative will likely have to entirely reimagine its future.

When speaking with Screen Rant about exploring more of Sam's psyche, Ulrich confirmed, "I was hoping for exactly that, and that's sort of the idea that was pitched to me a couple years ago. That it was a three-movie arc, with that in mind. Now, I never saw any of the drafts of 7 or anything that ... And I don't know, I mean, it's possible that it didn't include any of that as well. But yeah, that was my hope is that if it was going to mean anything, that it directly impacted the plot."

Scream 7 is currently in limbo, as Scream and Scream VI proved how financially viable the franchise remained, even after Neve Campbell's exit from the series. Happy Death Day and Freaky director Christopher Landon was initially hired to direct the next entry, though parted ways from the project. A new filmmaker has yet to be hired to helm the upcoming entry.

With 2022's Scream marking the first entry not to be directed by Wes Craven, who passed away in 2015, there were some creative shifts that took place, including pivoting away from Campbell's Sidney Prescott as the main character. Instead, we were left with a "Core Four" played by Barrera and Ortega alongside Jasmin Savoy Brown and Mason Gooding. While Barrera and Ortega are confirmed to be sitting out the next entry, Brown shared earlier this year that she has yet to be contacted about the next entry.

At this rate, fans are entirely unaware of what will happen with the franchise and the creative direction it will pursue.

Stay tuned for updates on Scream 7.

Are you looking forward to the next sequel? Let us know in the comments or contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter or on Instagram to talk all things Star Wars and horror!

Blumhouse Productions is known for igniting a number of horror franchises, though filmmaker Jeff Wadlow recently confirmed that his efforts to turn his 2018 movie Truth or Dare into a franchise nearly came to fruition during the coronavirus pandemic, but Blumhouse ultimately pulled the plug. While the film wasn't a major hit with critics, sitting at only 15% positive reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, it managed to take in $95.3 million worldwide on a reported budget of only $3.5 million. Unfortunately, Wadlow admits that the project will likely never come to fruition, as it seemed initially contingent upon the initial restraints of the pandemic.

"I got a call from Jason [Blum]," Wadlow explained to Variety. "'Would you be willing to move into the hotel on the Universal lot with all the actors from Truth or Dare and the crew, and quarantine with everyone and make a movie during the height of the pandemic?' I was in, and we started prepping it. There's this one cabin on the Universal lot where they've shot a million things -- we were going to take over that cabin. But I think they started to realize that the health and safety risks involved at that moment, and also the cost implications of basically not letting people leave, would mean everyone was on overtime for the entire shoot, and they pulled the plug on it."

The inspiration for the sequel came before the pandemic, however, as the film's cast reportedly stayed in touch quite closely once the film wrapped, so while a majority of the cast had been killed off in the film, the concept was for the actors to play fictional versions of themselves being subjected to a similar game as in the movie.

"So we wrote this script -- Truth or Dare IRL - and it begins with Markie and Olivia, Lucy [Hale] and Violett's [Beane] characters," the filmmaker revealed. "They're in this scene, and it feels like our Final Destination kind-of Truth or Dare scene, and Markie starts laughing in the middle of it. You hear, 'Cut!' and the director walks on the set, and we do the New Nightmare treatment where we reveal that Lucy and Violett are still friends. They're going to go on this trip with the other actors from Truth or Dare, with Tyler [Posey], Landon [Liboiron], and Sam [Lerner]. Everyone who was in the first film, they're all buddies, and we find out what happened is the writers of the first film had researched a real demon. Just as Calux can haunt a game in the film, he's now decided to haunt a movie in the real world. It was scary and surreal and funny and played a lot with subjectivity."

Posey himself initially created the idea, who also expressed disappointment in not getting to bring the project to life.

"It was definitely heartbreaking that we didn't get a chance to do it, but I just love that story so much," Posey confessed.

"The ship has sailed ... Too much time has passed," Wadlow pointed out. "But I think that would have been a lot of fun to make and the audience would have dug it."

Wadlow's latest film for Blumhouse, Imaginary, hits theaters on March 8th.

Would you have liked to have gotten this sequel? Let us know in the comments or contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter or on Instagram to talk all things Star Wars and horror!

"We're the ones who live." Spoken by Andrew Lincoln's Rick Grimes and Danai Gurira's Michonne on The Walking Dead, those five words would inspire the new Walking Dead spinoff series reuniting Rick and Michonne for the first time in years. First announced as a trilogy of Walking Dead movies following Lincoln's departure from the mothership show in season 9, Lincoln and Gurira collaborated with showrunner Scott M. Gimple to rework the features into a six-episode event series. After years gone "bye," Rick and Michonne return in The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live.

Here's a rundown of everything to know about The Walking Dead Rick and Michonne show, including when and where to watch the new series.

What Is The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live About?

The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live reveals what happened to Rick after Jadis (Pollyanna McIntosh) had him airlifted away in a CRM helicopter on season 9 of The Walking Dead. In season 10, Michonne learned that Rick didn't die in the bridge explosion and then set off to bring him home to their children: Judith and Rick "RJ" Grimes Jr.

"The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live presents an epic love story of two characters changed by a changed world. Kept apart by distance. By an unstoppable power. By the ghosts of who they were,"the official synopsis reads. "Rick and Michonne are thrown into another world, built on a war against the dead... And ultimately, a war against the living. Can they find each other and who they were in a place and situation unlike any they've ever known before? Are they enemies? Lovers? Victims? Victors? Without each other, are they even alive -- or will they find that they, too, are the Walking Dead?"

The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live Cast

Along with Lincoln and Gurira returning as Rick and Michonne, the series stars TWD Universe newcomers Lesley-Ann Brandt (Lucifer) as Civic Republic Military Sgt. Major Pearl Thorne, Terry O'Quinn (Lost) as CRM Major General Beale, Matthew August Jeffers (New Amsterdam) as Nat, and Craig Tate (Snowfall) as CRM Lt. Col. Donald Okafor. Pollyanna McIntosh, who played Jadis on The Walking Dead and returned on The Walking Dead: World Beyond, reprises her role as CRM Warrant Officer Jadis Stokes.

How Many Episodes Is The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live?

The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live is being described as a "six-episode event series."

When and Where to Watch The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live

The new Walking Dead series premieres Sunday, February 25, at 9 p.m. ET on AMC and AMC+. New episodes will release weekly on Sundays.

Cord-cutters who don't have cable can stream The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live with an AMC+ subscription, which begins at $4.99/month for the Monthly With Ads plan or $8.99/month for the Ad-free Monthly plan.

Who Made the New Walking Dead Series?

Lincoln and Gurira developed and co-created The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live with Scott M. Gimple, AMC's TWD Universe chief content officer who showran seasons 4--8 of The Walking Dead. Lincoln and Gurira also serve as executive producers with Gimple, Brian Bockrath (The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon), and longtime Walking Dead executive producers Denise Huth, Greg Nicotero, Gale Anne Hurd, David Alpert and TWD creator Robert Kirkman. Also on board as co-executive producers are episodes 1 & 2 directors Bert & Bertie (Silo), Gabriel Llanas (Avatar: The Last Airbender), Channing Powell (Tales of The Walking Dead), and Ryan DeGard ?(The Walking Dead: Dead City).

The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live Title Explained

"The ones who live" is a phrase that has been repeated throughout The Walking Dead. Rick was the first to say it when he told the residents of the Alexandria Safe-Zone that his group knows how to survive in the season 5 episode "Try," and Michonne reminded him of his words after the Alexandrians were subjugated by Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) and the Saviors.

"We're still alive, Rick. So much has happened. So much that we shouldn't have lived through. In spite of it, or maybe because of it, we did. We're still here. The two of us," Michonne, now Rick's partner, told him in the season 7 episode "Hearts Still Beating." "We're still standing and we're going to keep standing. So what do we do with that? How do we make that mean something? We're the ones who get things done. You said that. We're the ones who live." Michonne repeated it back to Rick again in "Rock in the Road," when the couple took out a walker horde. "We're here. You can smile. We made it," Michonne told him. "We can make it. We're the ones who live."

The words would connect Rick and Michonne in The Walking Dead series finale, "Rest in Peace," where Rick and Michonne wrote letters while separated by time and distance. "We'll always be together, even when we're apart. We, together, are the strongest thing. We're love, and love is endless," Michonne said, her words becoming entwined with Rick's: "So we, those gone, all of our lives, those away, they come in one life. We are endless. We're together, pieces of a whole that just keep going for what we gave each other. One unstoppable life."

"We're the ones who live," Rick and Michonne said over a montage of the ones who lived. In the final scene of the series, Judith reminded RJ: "We get to start over. We're the ones who live."

"We're the ones who live, which we had in [The Walking Dead season 11] coda and thankfully got to make the title of this show, It's not just about the ones who are alive, its about those who are living inside of us," Gurira explained to ComicBook. "Those that we carry -- their souls, their spirits. The connection that we have to them, it's very real inside of us. The essence of who they were in the effect they had on us. And the way that they contributed to everyone into the group and for the life of all of us. And for any of us to survive, we've got that. We've all survived. And that being a core thing that keeps us going is that connection."

Stay tuned to ComicBook/TWD and follow on Facebook for more TWD Universe coverage.

Boy Kills World just released a brand-new trailer for Sam Raimi's wild action movie. Directed by Moritz Mohr, Bill Skarsg?rd and Jessica Rothe star in this bloody slugfest. The IT actor plays "Boy" a man set out on revenge after his family meets a grisly fate. In a weird quirk for this genre, he's almost completely silent while all of this carnage erupts around him. A deadly woman is responsible for his personal tragedy and so he sets out to have his revenge. Skarsg?rd's character is trained by Yaya Ruhian as he needs training to survive this apocalyptic setting. It's all the kind of maximal treatment you would expect from a filmmaker like Raimi's stamp of approval.

Lionsgate feels good about the TIFF oddity, they said so in a release when it was acquired."From the opening frames, 'Boy Kills World' catapulted the Lionsgate team into a completely bonkers world masterfully created by Sam Raimi, Roy Lee, Bill Skarsg?rd and the incredibly dynamic cast and crew." Lauren Bixby, Lionsgate's Senior Vice President of Acquisitions and Co-Productions wrote at the time. "We could not be more excited to partner with our friends at Roadside to bring the delightful insanity to US audiences everywhere."

Bruce Campbell Confirms More Evil Dead

Longtime Raimi collaborator Bruce Campbell has been in the news lately teasing new Evil Dead installments. He previously talked to ComicBook.com about his tonal preferences for Evil Dead projects. Despite his own inklings, he's happy to leave that up to whoever's behind the camera. While the first series was a bit of a straightforward horror tale, things got weirder as time goes on. Some people are fans of the first approach and others are fans of the second lane. Finding that balance can be a tough nut to crack. Here's what he had to say.

"We let the filmmakers decide. Sam puts it on their plate," Campbell said in our interview. "Fede ?lvarez wanted to do a straight version, because the original Evil Dead is sort of melodramatic. [Evil Dead Rise director] Lee Cronin, his background is drama, I don't think he wanted any winking at the camera. And we don't ever try to put these guys beyond their comfort zone. I would like to see another Evil Dead 2-type movie. We've got a couple more in the pipeline and it would be nice to jolly it up a little bit, but we try to respect the filmmakers. If they're better at doing a straight horror, that's okay."

Doctor Strange 2 And Raimi's Impact

Sam Raimi has been riding even higher since Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness hit theaters. That lean into the horror genre was a win for Marvel Studios. ComicBook.com's Phase Zero podcast spoke to Raimi about getting a little scary in the MCU. The director revealed that it was Kevin Feige's goal to take viewers on a journey they might never have been on before. His perspective was more based in the comics than anything else really.

"That's really what Marvel and Kevin Feige wanted to do: they wanted to make Multiverse of Madness their first Marvel entry into the horror film, kind of dipping their toe into the water," Raimi said. "But it wasn't supposed to be Earth-quaking, ground-shaking terror. It was supposed to be the kind of horror and scariness and spookiness you'd find in a Doctor Strange comic."

Will you be catching this new movie? Let us know down in the comments!

Dead by Daylight now has Iron Maiden skins for four different Killers, Behaviour Interactive revealed this week. The Iron Maiden Collection was teased previously during the game's seventh anniversary broadcast event, but it wasn't until today when the skins for the Dead by Daylight Killers went live in-game that we got to see what they looked like. The Dead by Daylight skins in question are for The Dredge, The Doctor, The Deathslinger, and The Oni, and you can buy them right now as part of the Iron Maiden Collection.

These new Dead by Daylight skins for the Killers take inspiration from Eddie, the mascot for Iron Maiden which you can see interpretations of in the skins shown off below. In addition to these four main skins for the Dead by Daylight Killers, Survivors are also getting something, too, with the four original Survivors -- Dwight, Jake, Claudette, Meg -- all getting tour shirts.

Dead by Daylight's Iron Maiden Skins

From left to right, the skins above are for The Doctor, The Oni, The Dredge, and The Deathslinger. It's easier to see the Eddie influences in some of them more than the others, but even if you're not in it for the Iron Maiden homage, Dead by Daylight Killers like The Dredge and The Deathslinger did pretty well for themselves with these new skins.

In addition to these skins and the Survivor t-shirts, the Iron Maiden cosmetics come with an additional effect. When they're equipped in a match lobby, Iron Maiden's "Fear the Dark" will play to help set the mood, though it doesn't continue on into an actual match. Dead by Daylight's product manager Kirby Taylor indicated in a press release associated with the announcement that there could be more surprises regarding the Survivors and the Iron Maiden skins.

"What an incredibly exciting new collaboration for us to explore," said Taylor. "Eddie is such an icon, and flipping through some of his famous appearances to see which Killers we could pair them with was a dream come true. We're also glad our Survivors can get in on the fun with some killer tour t-shirts. A couple of those even have a little surprise as well, depending on the Survivor, but we'll leave that up to players to find."

In addition to these Iron Maiden skins that are out now, Dead by Daylight players have more to look forward to in the future from other metal groups. Iron Maiden kicked off the music crossovers, but Slipknot is coming next with nine different Killer masks being added to the game. That and a crossover with renowned artists like The Evil Within artist Ikumi Nakamura are in the works for future release.

"The Iron Maiden Collection features Outfits inspired by their iconic mascot Eddie, while The Slipknot Collection features 9 Killer masks that mirror those worn by the band members," Behaviour Interactive said previously. "We also announced the Artists From The Fog Collection, a collaborative effort featuring Outfits designed by five artists, including renowned Creative Director Ikumi Nakamura."

Dead by Daylight's Iron Maiden Collection is available in-game now.

Deadpool 2 star Josh Brolin is reportedly in talks to star in Weapons, the next horror movie from Barbarian director Zach Cregger. The film had originally been set to star Pedro Pascal, but the star had to back out due to scheduling conflicts once he committed to Marvel's The Fantastic Four, which is set to go into production soon. Weapons had been aiming for a fall 2023 start date, but was pushed back -- likely due to the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes last year, although no official reason has been given. If the Brolin deal closes, Weapons would be the actor's first horror movie.

Very little is known about Weapons at this point. The movie has been described as a "horror epic" and compared to Magnolia, Paul Thomas Anderson's 1999 movie that featured a star-studded cast, all appearing in interrelated stories that orbit one another and occasionally interact.

Cregger scored himself an eight-figure sum from New Line to write and direct the new project, a number that is more than twice Barbarian's $4.5-million budget. It seems likely the label behind It and The Conjuring is looking for a franchise -- or at least a tentpole -- but given Cregger's reluctance to make a Barbarian sequel, it's also entirely possible New Line is just trying to form a relationship with the filmmaker himself.

"Zach doesn't want to do a sequel. He's very much, it's stand-alone, it was really good, and I think sometimes with certain things, that's the best way to go," Barbarian star Georgina Campbell told ComicBook.com last year. "He is the creator, the writer, director, so he knows. That's his thing, he doesn't want to expand upon it, so just leave it alone."

In addition to Brolin, the cast would include Sophie Thatcher (Yellowjackets), Jack Quaid (The Boys, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse), Lukas Cage (The White Lotus, You), Megan Suri (Never Have I Ever, Poker Face), and Harvey Guill?n (What We Do in the Shadows, Blue Beetle).

Cregger will serve as producer, along with Roy Lee of Vertigo and J.D. Lifshitz and Raphael Margules of BoulderLight Pictures, according to THR, who first broke the casting news. Vertigo's Miri Yoon also produces.

Cregger also told ComicBook.com back in 2022 that he had an idea for a DC movie set in Gotham City, but he had not yet pitched it to anyone at Warner Bros.

There has been a shakeup in Liongate's release schedule. The John Wick spinoff, Ballerina, has been delayed a year, but its summer release date won't remain empty. It was reported that the spot will now be filled by The Crow reboot, which will see It star Bill Skarsg?rd taking on the titular role. According to a new report from Deadline, The Crow will officially be heading to theaters on June 7th of this year.

The Crow is based on the graphic novel by James O'Barr. It has been described as a "modern reimaging" that will be quite different from the 1994 film that starred Brandon Lee. You can read a description of the new film here: "Soulmates Eric Draven (Skarsg?rd) and Shelly Webster (FKA twigs) are brutally murdered when the demons of her dark past catch up with them. Given the chance to save his true love by sacrificing himself, Eric sets out to seek merciless revenge on their killers, traversing the worlds of the living and the dead to put the wrong things right."

Danny Huston, Laura Birn, Sami Bouajila, and Jordan Bolger also star in the film, which was penned by Zach Baylin and Will Schneider. The Crow was produced by Victor Hadida, Molly Hassell, John Jencks, Samuel Hadida, and Edward R. Pressman."

June 7th will also see the release of New Line's horror movie, The Watchers, which was directed by Ishana Night Shyamalan. The Watchers is based on a novel by A.M. Shine, and follows an artist (Dakota Fanning) named Mina "who gets stranded in an expansive, untouched forest in western Ireland." Mina eventually finds shelter, but she "unknowingly becomes trapped alongside three strangers who are watched and stalked by mysterious creatures each night."

The Crow Producer Says Movie Could Launch Extended Universe:

The Crow producer Sam Pressman recently spoke to Deadline about the upcoming project, and teased it will "blow people away."

"The Crow has been a very central and integral part of our company and I'm really proud of the progress and the work that has been done," Pressman shared. "I think the movie is just going to blow people away. Our partners want to approach it in a very 360 way, whether it be video games, an animated series, or a universe, but it's got this cosmic legacy that can expand beyond a singular story."

Stay tuned for more updates on The Crow reboot, which is heading to theaters on June 7th.

It's been over five years since Rick and Michonne were separated on season 9 of The Walking Dead -- and a long eight years in the show's timeline -- but now Andrew Lincoln and Danai Gurira are starring in their own six-episode event series. Originally planned as a trilogy of Rick Grimes movies, The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live takes place during and after the mothership show's last three seasons and follows the couple as they struggle to reunite while facing an unstoppable power: the Civic Republic Military.

Below, read on to find out when and where to watch the new Walking Dead spinoff series and see our guide for everything you need to know about The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live.

The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live: Where to Watch

You can watch The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live on AMC with cable or stream on AMC+ with a subscription.

When Does The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live Start?

The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live premieres Sunday, February 25, at 9 p.m. on AMC. The network confirmed to ComicBook that AMC+ subscribers can stream new Walking Dead episodes early starting at 3 a.m. ET / 12 a.m. PT on Sundays.

How Many Episodes Is The Walking Dead Rick and Michonne Spinoff?

The new Walking Dead series consists of six episodes.

The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live Episodes Release Schedule

• The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live Episode 1: "Years" - February 25 on AMC and AMC+
• The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live Episode 2: "Gone" - March 3 on AMC and AMC+
• The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live Episode 3: "Bye" - March 10 on AMC and AMC+
• The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live Episode 4: "What We" - March 17 on AMC and AMC+
• The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live Episode 5: "Become" - March 24 on AMC and AMC+
• The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live Episode 6: (TBA) - March 31 on AMC and AMC+

How to Watch The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live Online for Free

New AMC+ subscribers can sign up for a free seven-day trial to watch the "Years" series premiere of The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live.

How Much Does AMC+ Cost?

AMC+ plans start at $4.99/month for the Monthly With Ads plan or $8.99/month for the Ad-free Monthly plan.

Watch The Walking Dead: The Return

The Walking Dead: The Return is a 40-minute documentary special following TWD stars Andrew Lincoln and Danai Gurira as they take a trip down memory lane, sharing stories and reminiscing about their time on set. The documentary is exclusive to the Australian streaming service Stan and is not currently available to viewers in the United States, but AMC released a special sneak peek featuring Lincoln and Gurira via YouTube. Watch it below.

Stay tuned to ComicBook/TWD and follow on Facebook for more TWD Universe coverage.

Todd McFarlane has spent a lot of years since 1997 trying to get another live-action Spawn movie off the ground, and the character has gotten some pretty wild ideas for adaptation along the way.

ComicBook.com's The Collectibles Show got to visit McFarlane Studios recently - Todd McFarlane's production house, workshop and and personal playland. Of the many, many, wonders of geek and pop-culture history that host Chris Krillian saw, one of the most memorable (for better or worse) were the alternate designs for Spawn that some movie-makers considered going with!

As you can see in the video above, the concept art for these Spawn movie characters to some VERY big detours away from Todd McFarlane's artwork in the comic books - concepts even McFarlane describes as being "funky ideas." McFarlane described the "organic" look that a lot of movie-makers wanted to go with for Spawn, with some concepts going as far as looking like something out of the Alien franchise, with its horrific take on what forms "organic life" can take.

Even more striking are the concepts for Spawn's first nemesis Violator and his alter-ego the Clown. The concepts ranged from very comic-accurate versions of violator, to versions that look like the belong in legitimate serial killer and/or horror films. Not so much the lovable rascal version of Violator, played by John Leguizamo in the original film....

New Line Cinema is name-dropped as the studio that was entertaining some of these particular designs, but no breakdown on the artists was given - and really, at this point, that info is probably lost to obscurity. WATCH the FULL VIDEO interivew with Todd McFarlane below:

No doubt a lot of Spawn fans' eyes are going to gravitate toward the more horror-themed designs in artwork portfolio we see here. The 1997 Spawn film went with a superhero blockbuster movie approach - or at least what qualified as a "superhero blockbuster" at that time. Most subsequent discussions of a Spawn reboot film have angled toward the hope that it is much more of a supernatural-horror film than a "superhero" film; for his part, Todd McFarlane has spent over a decade pitching and developing the project as a mystery-horror film, with series policemen Sam and Twitch investigating what turns out to be the demonic figure of Spawn. That film is still currently in development, with Blumhouse Pictures in the scripting stages, as of earlier this year.

"I don't know how much I'm allowed to say, but I am Lydia Deetz's daughter, so I'll give that away," she told Vanity Fair in a recent interview "She's weird, but in a different way and not in the way you'd assume, I would say. The relationship between Lydia (Ryder) and Astrid, my character, is very important. And it's also really strange because it's a lot of catching up and putting the pieces together of what's gone on in Lydia's life since, which is nice, I think, for anybody who loves the character and is excited to see her again."

It's easy to imagine that Lydia Deetz has had some trouble in life, since the events of the first Beetlejuice. It was Lydia's weird disposition that gave her the unique ability to see ghosts like Adam and Barbara Maitland (Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis); that's fine when you're a Goth teen, but growing into adult and parenthood with that kind of insight into the supernatural - or its presence in your life wouldn't be all that enjoyable - or great for your mental health. One can only imagine what a Gen Z child raised by Lydia would become - but Jenna Ortega is about to take us there.

Beetlejuice 2 Is Gonna Get Weird For Kids

Ortega also stated in her VF interview that she's excited to be working on Beetlejuice Beetlejuice because it's bringing back a wave of content that's weird and different and even a little scary - enough to get them out of their phones and tablets and make them pay attention.

"I feel like studios nowadays, of course, they want people in seats and you've got to do reboots or sequels or things like that to get people entwined," Ortega said, before adding that "to bring 'Beetlejuice' back - of all of the stories - is so good because people need to revisit weird, strange, off-putting stories again. We need to introduce the younger generation that's always on the phone to new artistic and creative ideas. The weirder you get with it, the more people you can get to see it, I think will probably do a lot for film in general."

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice will bring back original film stars Winona Ryder, Catherine O'Hara and Michael Keaton as Beetlejuice. Joining the cast are Jenna Ortega as Lydia's daughter Astrid, Monica Bellucci, Willem Dafoe, and Justin Theroux. Dafoe previously teased that he is playing a police officer in the afterworld, so it sounds as though Keaton's Beetlejuice won't be the only eccentric ghost featured in the follow-up. The rest of the plot details are still unknown.

Beetlejuice 2: Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is set to be released in theaters on September 6th.

Cemetery Kids Don't Die follows a group of four teenagers who are enraptured with the latest video game console of the day: The Dreamwave. Playing a role-playing game that perhaps most resembles the brutal indie game, Darkest Dungeon, the Cemetery Kids find themselves attempting to conquer this console entry dubbed "Nightmare Cemetery." Unfortunately, one teen named "Pik" finds himself not just struggling with the game, but the gruesome deaths that he faces in the game itself that appear to be bleeding into the real world. As Pik's gang of adventurers attempts to attain a certain target in the creepy video game landscape, things only go from bad to worse for Pik himself.

Writer Zac Thompson weaves an interesting story, creating a parallel between escaping reality in a world that seems far harsher on its surface, but whose escapism resonates with the teenagers. There's a darker secret that's alluded to here in subtle--and not so subtle--ways throughout the first issue, setting the stage for a thrilling mystery that will hopefully stick the landing in four issues. One caveat I found from the debut is that while Pik is explored well, I do wish that his supporting cast also had more of their individual characteristics spotlighted. It's a tricky feat to introduce all the moving pieces of a story, let alone a horror story, and Thompson does an admirable job. I only wish it was able to maintain a sprint along the way in giving readers more of each character.

Thompson's display is one that I'm a sucker for, as games like Dark Souls, Bloodborne, and Darkest Dungeon have been my bread and butter in recent gaming years. While the Cemetery Kids might be in a virtual world, it still feels dangerous, especially when the effects of the game begin bleeding into the real world. That makes their digital analogs, and the instances where they enter the Nightmare Cemetery, that can most keep readers on edge. The ghastly monstrosities, as well as the dreary, Lovecraftian setting, help to hammer home the horror here.

Artist Daniel Irizarri and colorist Brittany Peer might just be the shining stars of this new horror series. The pair are able to work well in unison, both in the "real world" and the video game settings. They're able to capture the energy of youth in the main characters at high school, alongside the creeping terrors that they find themselves encountering in the Nightmare Cemetery. When the two worlds meet later in the first issue, it feels both natural and unnatural, while slamming home a quite unnerving page in the process as one grotesque sequence is made that much more effective. It can often be difficult to incorporate skin-crawling elements into a series, especially one where a creative team is attempting to take on a more energetic, "manga" style with its art, but the team behind Cemetery Kids Don't Die does so in spades.

Cemetery Kids Don't Die is a strong start for this miniseries. It's not perfect, but it does a fantastic job of dragging readers into its world while giving comic and horror fans alike quite a bit of grotesque eye-candy along the way. I'm anxious to see what territory the Oni Press series explores in its three remaining installments, and if it will open the door for more tales of terror from this talented creative team.

Published by Oni Press

On February 21, 2024

Written by Zac Thompson

Art by Daniel Irizarri

Colors by Brittany Peer

Letters by Andworld Design

Cover by Daniel Irizarri

True Detective creator Nic Pizzolatto has been quick to criticize the newest season of HBO's anthology series. Pizzolatto wrote the first three seasons of True Detective, the latter two of which failed to live up to expectations of the original, both critically and in the ratings. The new installment, True Detective: Night Country, saw Issa L?pez take over as writer and showrunner, earning the most acclaimed reviews of the series since 2014 and True Detective's highest ratings ever. Still, there has been a small group of vocal True Detective viewers who have spend the last six weeks criticizing the new season, and it appears Pizzolatto is among them.

In a series of now-deleted Instagram posts, Pizzolatto shared messages from viewers that referred to Night Country as a "hot mess" that "butchered and misappropriated" the "all time classic dialogue" of True Detective's first season. This has been an ongoing issue for Pizzolatto, who has been replying to comments with negative thoughts about Night Country for several weeks. He told one fan that he "certainly didn't have any input on this story or anything else. Can't blame me." It's worth noting that Pizzolatto is still an executive producer for the series, so he is certainly benefitting from its renewed success.

After these comments started surfacing online following Sunday night's season finale (the second most-watched episode of True Detective), Night Country star Kali Reis took to social media to address Pizzolatto's criticism.

"That's a damn shame," Reis said. "But hey I guess 'if you don't have anything good to share, shit on others' is the new wave."

?? That's a damn shame...but hey I guess "if you don't have anything good to share, shit on others" is the new wave ???? lol https://t.co/4EOvu0oPSu

-- Kali Reis (@KO_Reis86) February 20, 2024

Reis stars in Night Country alongside Oscar-winning legend Jodie Foster. The duo play two police officers in Ennis, Alaska, who are investigating the murder of an indigenous woman and the mysterious deaths of several remote scientists.

L?pez, who wrote and directed all six episodes of True Detective: Night Country, was also asked about Pizzolatto's comments when they first started surfacing online earlier in the season.

"I believe that every storyteller has a very specific, peculiar, and unique relation to the stories they create, and whatever his reactions are, he's entitled to them. That's his prerogative," L?pez shared with Vulture. "I wrote this with profound love for the work he made and love for the people that loved it. And it is a reinvention, and it is different, and it's done with the idea of sitting down around the fire, and [let's] have some fun and have some feelings and have some thoughts. And anybody that wants to join is welcome."

It's been a very long time since we've heard anything about Killer Klowns From Outer Space: The Game. The horror title was expected to release in 2023, but basically disappeared last year. However, developer Teravision Games has resurfaced with a release date as well as a new trailer! Killer Klowns from Outer Space: The Game will be releasing June 4th, 2024 on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC via Steam. Pre-orders for the game will begin on February 21st, and those that pre-order will receive one week of early access.

A new trailer for the game was shared by IGN and can be found below.

As can be seen from the trailer, Killer Klowns from Outer Space is an asymmetrical survival horror game similar to titles like The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. In the game, teams of survivors and Klowns will be working against one another, with survivors being forced to either kill the Klowns, or just manage to escape them. That will be easier said than done, of course, as the Klowns will have some unique kills. At one point in the trailer, a Klown can be seen stepping on and killing players!

What is Killer Klowns from Outer Space?

Killer Klowns from Outer Space is a 1988 horror movie written, directed, and produced by the Chiodo brothers. The film is about a group of aliens resembling clowns that invade Earth and begin killing the populace of Crescent Cove, a small town. In the decades since, Killer Klowns from Outer Space has become a cult classic film. The last few years in particular have seen a surge in merchandise based on the movie, from Funko Pops, to Halloween costumes and props.

The video game is the latest step in merchandising related to the movie, and the Chiodo brothers have been involved with some stages of development. In a 2022 interview with ComicBook.com, the Chiodo brothers revealed that they had played an early build of the game, with Stephen Chiodo noting that he "got killed really quickly, but it was fun."

Asymmetrical Horror Games

Over the last few years, several prominent horror franchises have been transformed into asymmetrical multiplayer games. This has been seen in full games like Killer Klowns from Outer Space, Friday the 13th, and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, while Dead by Daylight has included content based on films like The Ring, Child's Play, and Halloween. Horror franchises have proven to be a strong fit for this sort of game, as there are a lot of people that would prefer to play as killers rather than survivors, or vice versa. It will be interesting to see if Killer Klowns from Outer Space: The Game can find a passionate audience, and if it will see a steady stream of updates to keep players invested.

Are you looking forward to Killer Klowns from Outer Space: The Game? Do you plan on pre-ordering it? Share your thoughts with me directly on Twitter at @Marcdachamp or on Instagram at @Dachampgaming!

"We'll always be together, even when we're apart," Michonne wrote in a letter to her children on The Walking Dead series finale. "We're love, and love is endless." That enduring and endless love between Danai Gurira's Michonne and Andrew Lincoln's Rick Grimes is at the heart of new Walking Dead spinoff series The Ones Who Live, which Gurira and Lincoln co-created with showrunner Scott M. Gimple. But it's episode 4, written by Tony Award-nominated playwright and executive producer Gurira herself, that was crafted with love for the most diehard Richonne shippers.

"The episode Danai wrote is pretty incredible," co-star Lesley-Ann Brandt, who plays CRM Sgt. Maj. Pearl Thorne, told ComicBook. "I think it's just for the purists. It's for the hardcore 'Richonners.' That episode is for them."

Brandt described the episode, titled "What We," as "the climax of their love." We can't reveal what that means for Rick and Michonne, but ComicBook's review of the first four (of six) episodes called the Gurira-penned episode 4 "an emotionally-charged masterwork that encapsulates what The Ones Who Live is about."

First announced as a trilogy of Rick Grimes movies, Gurira worked with Lincoln and Gimple to redevelop the planned features into the six-episode event series premiering Feb. 25 on AMC and AMC+. Gurira took creative point on "What We," the culmination of years of unresolved storylines left up in the air after Rick was helicoptered away from The Walking Dead in season 9 and Michonne made it her mission to find him in season 10.

"[Writing episode 4] was a lot of work, and of course, it was going on simultaneously with all the other work that one has to do in this show," Gurira told ComicBook. "We had already arced the series, the three of us, so we knew what this episode needed to be. And of course, there's a process of getting the episode to where you want it to be. And Gimple was like, 'She's the showrunner of that episode, don't come to talk to me.'"

"And so I was the point person for the episode, which allowed me to have a vision on it, but it was very collaborative," Gurira continued. "They were reading every draft, they were giving their thoughts, their notes. And also, the episode before it was being tweaked, and as that tweaks, I have to tweak, because they have to work together. So ultimately it was a process, but I loved what it came to be."

Gurira also oversaw post-production on the episode helmed by Breaking Bad director of photography turned director Michael Slovis, who was behind the camera on The Walking Dead episodes "Thank You," "Something They Need," and "Worth."

"The amazing Michael Slovis was the director, and he did an incredible job," Gurira said. "It's such a familiar story, but I was explaining a very different chapter of it to people, in a way that we hadn't explored these narratives as a whole for the series. And this episode was definitely part of that. It was great, it was very collaborative. It was also very solitary, and very little sleep."

The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live premieres February 25 and airs Sundays on AMC and AMC+.

Visual effects have evolved tremendously since Tim Burton delivered audiences Beetlejuice in 1988, but for the upcoming sequel Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, star Michael Keaton expressed how a major goal for the project was to replicate the spirit of that debut film and create a "handmade" feel. Understandably, no one involved in the original movie knew how beloved the experience would go on to become, so it was a priority for Burton and Keaton to replicate as much of what made that debut film a hit as opposed to embracing too many contemporary cinematic techniques. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is set to hit theaters on September 6th.

"The one thing that he and I decided on early, early, early on from the beginning, if we ever did it again, I was totally not interested in doing something where there was too much technology," Keaton shared with PEOPLE. "It had to feel handmade. What made it fun was watching somebody in the corner actually holding something up for you, to watch everybody in the shrunken head room and say, 'Those are people under there, operating these things, trying to get it right.'"

While Keaton's career hasn't been entirely full of CGI-heavy experiences, having starred in projects like The Flash and Spider-Man: Homecoming in recent years, it sounds as though he was excited to have returned to the filmmaking methods from his earlier collaborations with Burton.

"It's the most exciting thing," the actor admitted. "When you get to do that again after years of standing in front of a giant screen, pretending somebody's across the way from you, this is just enormous fun."

With more than 35 years having passed since the original movie, many audiences had assumed that the sequel would never move forward, but remarks from Keaton echoed how both he and Burton were only interested in resurrecting the "ghost with the most" for the right story, and the actor seems to confirm this is the story worth telling.

"It's the most fun I've had on set in a long time ... On one hand, you'd go, 'Well, of course it's the most fun. It looks like fun.' As you know, it doesn't always work like that," Keaton confessed. "We thought, 'You got to get this right. Otherwise, just don't do it. Let's just go on with our lives and do other things.' So I was hesitant and cautious, and he was probably equally as hesitant and cautious over all these years ... Once we got there, I said, 'Okay, let's just go for it. Let's just see if we can do it, if we can pull this off.'"

Also starring in the film are Winona Ryder, Catherine O'Hara, Jenna Ortega, Willem Dafoe, and Monica Bellucci.

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is set to hit theaters on September 6th.

Are you looking forward to the sequel? Let us know in the comments or contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter or on Instagram to talk all things Star Wars and horror!

After several teasers warned Dead by Daylight players of a creepy new Killer coming to the game, Behaviour Interactive revealed this week the plans for the game's next DLC Chapter called All Things Wicked. Unlike some DLCs which only include a Killer or a Survivor, this Chapter will be the whole package with a Killer, Survivor, and a new map included. Those new additions will be The Unknown, Sable Ward, and Greenville Square, respectively, and ahead of their full release, we already know all that we need to about what the new Killer and Survivor can do in Dead by Daylight.

That's because the patch notes are already up for the DLC's test server update so that players can try out The Unknown and Sable Ward before they commit to buying them. As outlined in the powers and perks for The Unknown, the new Killer is a misshapen entity capable of causing hallucinations and firing off a bouncing energy blast that hinders Survivors.

The energy blast is a pretty new concept for Dead by Daylight, but Survivor Sable Ward has her own tricks through something new called an "Invocation." Tapping into the character's lore and her backstory with Mikaela Reed, this Invocation and other parts of Sable Ward's kit task her with risking time in the basement in exchange for some powerful perks.

More on each of the characters as well as an in-game look at both can be seen below courtesy of Behaviour Interactive. Dead by Daylight's All Things Wicked DLC will launch on March 12th.

Sable Ward

Perks

Invocation: Weaving Spiders

• When in the Basement near the circle, press the ability button 1 to begin the Invocation.
• Invocations take 120/120/120 seconds. Other Survivors will see your aura during this and can join an ongoing interaction, increasing the speed by 50/50/50% each. If they have an Invocation Perk equipped, they increase it by 100/100/100% instead.
• Once the Invocation is completed: You become injured and Broken for the rest of the Trial, and all Generators instantly gain 9/12/15 charges.
• Completing the Invocation disables that Perk for all Survivors.

Strength in Shadows

• When in the basement, this Perk activates.
• Unlocks the Strength in Shadows ability, which allows you to heal without a Med-Kit at 60/60/60% normal healing speed.
• When you finish a heal in the basement, you see the Killer's aura for 6/8/10 seconds.

Wicked

• NOTE: The PTB features an older version of the Perk which has since been replaced. The effects listed below are how the Perk functions on the PTB, but this effect will be changed before the update goes live.
• This Perk starts with 1 Token, up to a maximum of 5/5/5 Tokens.
• For each Token, you recover from Mangled 20/20/20% faster.
• For each 15/15/15 seconds spent in the basement, gain 1 Token.
• While affected by the Cursed Status Effect, you heal 8/9/10% faster.

The Unknown

Killer Power

• Press the Power button to charge UVX. Once ready, press the Attack button to launch UVX, a bouncing Projectile which creates a Blast Area upon impact. Survivors become Hindered if touched by UVX while airborne. Survivors touching the Blast Area become Weakened. Weakened Survivors lose health states if touched by Blast Area. Survivors lose Weakened by successfully Staring Down The Unknown.

Special Ability: Hallucinations

• The Unknown will intermittently create Hallucinations. Hallucinations cannot be created while charging UVX, performing interactions, or in proximity to map objects like hooks. Whenever Survivors are touched by Blast Area or otherwise become Weakened, the next Hallucination's spawn time decreases by 10 seconds.

Special Ability: Teleport

• The Unknown can teleport to Hallucinations, leaving behind a temporary Decoy. Survivors can remove Hallucinations from the Trial with the Dispel ability. Weakened Survivors take longer to Dispel. If Dispel is not completed, Survivors become Weakened and trigger Killer Instinct.

Unbound

• This perk activates for 24/27/30 seconds after a Survivor becomes injured by any means.
• After vaulting a window, you gain 5% Haste for 10 seconds. This effect cannot stack with itself.

Unforeseen

• When you perform the Break action on a Generator, your Terror Radius transfers to the Generator for 22/26/30 seconds and its radius is set to 32/32/32 meters.
• You gain Undetectable for that duration.
• Then, this Perk goes on cool-down for 30/30/30 seconds.

Undone

• When a Survivor misses a healing or repair Skill Check, gain 3 Tokens, up to a maximum of 18/24/30 Tokens.
• When you perform the Break action on a Generator, if you have any Tokens, consume all of them. For each Token consumed, the Generator loses 1% total progress and then becomes blocked for 1 second.
• Then, once the Generator is unblocked, it starts regressing.
• This Perk goes on cooldown for 60 seconds.

Anchor Bay Entertainment, a film and home video studio and distributor that closed down in 2017, is set for a comeback -- kind of. Umbrelic Entertainment co-founders Thomas Zambeck and Brian Katz have acquired the Anchor Bay Entertainment brand from Lionsgate, and plan to revive the label as a home for "new release genre films, undiscovered treasures, cult classics, and remastered catalog releases." The first two such releases have already been revealed, and Zambeck and Katz are traveling to the Berlin International Film Festival to hunt for more acquisitions.

While the current iteration of Anchor Bay has no direct financial ties to the original company, there is a personal tie: Katz, who has worked for companies including Starz, Sony, and Post Haste Digital, began his career more than 15 years ago at Anchor Bay.

"We had an opportunity to take the name of a beloved genre film brand, one we feel a personal connection to, for our new company," Zambeck told Deadline. "This is a new venture, unaffiliated with any previous incarnations. We aim to honor the history and spirit of the past as we look for interesting films that break the mold, and will be discovered by new generations for years to come."

The first two films on the new company's docket are Evan Marlowe's Abruptio, a horror movie done with realistic puppets, and the documentary Dinner With Leatherface, which centers on Gunnar Hansen, the actor who played the famous horor role in 1974's The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

In Abruptio, which stars James Marsters alongside Christopher McDonald, Jordan Peele, Robert Englund, and others, Les Hackel (James Marsters) is a guy down on his luck who wakes to find an explosive device has been implanted in his neck. He must carry out heinous crimes in order to stay alive while trying to identify the mastermind manipulating the now twisted and strange world around him. Kerry Marlowe executive produces along with Evan Marlowe, Barry Finlayson (Horror House), Sue Finlayson (Blood Rush) and Martin Lee White (A Right Fool).

In My Dinner With Leatherface, "friends, colleagues, filmmakers, and fellow actors share personal stories and discuss the dichotomy between the maniacal chainsaw-wielding character Hansen played on-screen and the very intelligent, creative, soft-spoken man he actually was in real life." The documentary features interviews with Bruce Campbnell, Barbara Crampton, Brian O'Halloran, Kane Hodder, and more.

Earlier today, news emerged that the studio had also acquired Crust, a horror comedy about a washed-up child actor who lives in a laundromat and befriends a monster made of socks and animated by the main character's "tears of anguish" (and, apparently, other bodily fluids).

Lost star Terry O'Quinn has joined the world of The Walking Dead, and he's ready to upset the status quo a little bit. O'Quinn, who has also appeared in Hawaii Five-0 and Resident Alien, plays Major General Beale in The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live (also known as the Rick and Michonne show), and he played coy about the magnitude of his character's impact on the world of the show. Speaking with ComicBook.com's Brandon Davis about the new series, O'Quinn thought it was "interesting" to hear speculation comparing Beale to Marvel's Thanos -- the big bad who tied the first decade of movies together.

It's an interesting concept, in part, because producers have not ruled out the idea of a crossover story to bring various different Walking Dead universe casts together in the future. Of course, while he himself didn't rule out the "Thanos theory, O'Quinn stopped short of confirming it.

"That's an interesting feeling that you expressed there," O'Quinn said. "You say, 'I feel like he could be,' I say, 'I'm glad it feels like he could be.'"

Per its official synopsis, The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live is "an epic love story of two characters changed by a changed world. Kept apart by distance. By an unstoppable power. By the ghosts of who they were. Rick and Michonne are thrown into another world, built on a war against the dead... And ultimately, a war against the living. Can they find each other and who they were in a place and situation unlike any they've ever known before? Are they enemies? Lovers? Victims? Victors? Without each other, are they even alive -- or will they find that they, too, are the Walking Dead?"

Walking Dead Universe Chief Content Officer Scott M. Gimple serves as showrunner and executive producer with Lincoln, Gurira, Denise Huth (The Walking Dead), and Brian Bockrath (The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon). The cast includes Lesley-Ann Brandt (Lucifer) as Pearl Thorne, Matthew Jeffers (The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel) as Nat, Terry O'Quinn (Lost) as Major General Beale, and Pollyanna McIntosh (The Walking Dead) as Jadis.

The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live premieres Sunday, February 25, on AMC and AMC+.

Salem's Lot has been in a sense of purgatory over the past two years, seeing one delay after the next amid leftover COVID-era production problems. The film itself has been completed and in the can for quite some time now, and Stephen King--the legendary horror icon who wrote the book the movie is based on--isn't sure why movie-goers haven't been able to see it.

"Between you and me, Twitter, I've seen the new SALEM'S LOT and it's quite good," King said Sunday in a new post on X, the social platform formerly known as Twitter. "Old-school horror filmmaking: slow build, big payoff. Not sure why WB is holding it back; not like it's embarrassing, or anything. Who knows. I just write the f--king things."

Between you and me, Twitter, I've seen the new SALEM'S LOT and it's quite good. Old-school horror filmmaking: slow build, big payoff. Not sure why WB is holding it back; not like it's embarrassing, or anything. Who knows. I just write the fucking things.

-- Stephen King (@StephenKing) February 19, 2024

This hasn't been the first time King's lept to the defense of the Gary Dauberman picture, having said something similar later last year. "The Warner Bros remake of SALEM'S LOT, currently shelved, is muscular and involving," King said at the time. "It has the feel of 'Old Hollywood,' when a film was given a chance to draw a breath before getting to business. When attention spans were longer, in other words."

He added, "It feels like a horror movie version of slow-burn movies like THE GREAT ESCAPE. It builds very well. There are diversions from the book I don't agree with, but on the whole, faithful. Best scene: Danny Glick in the hospital, trying to claw down a blood bag. The Glick scene could have been directed by John Carpenter in his prime."

The film is set to star Lewis Pullman in the picture's lead role. Other Salem's Lot cast members that have been confirmed include Makenzie Leigh (Gotham, Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk) as Susan Norton, Alfre Woodard (Marvel's Luke Cage) as Dr. Cody, Bill Camp (Joker) as Matthew Burke, Pilou Asbaek (Game of Thrones) as Richard Straker, Jordan Preston Carter (DMZ) as Mark Petrie, Spencer Treat Clark (Unbreakable) as Mike Ryerson, plus John Benjamin Hickey (Gossip Girl) as Father Callahan, with Nicholas Crovetti (Big Little Lies) as Danny Glick, and Cade Woodward as Ralph Glick.

Salem's Lot has yet to set a release date. The original two-part series can be rented wherever movies are sold.

In addition to some of the best reviews of the series, True Detective: Night Country has been the franchise's most successful in terms of the ratings for HBO. Night Country is the fourth installment of the True Detective anthology series, the first to air on HBO in nearly four years, and it seems as though the time away has gotten fans more excited about the show than ever before. Each episode of Night Country was a ratings hit, with Sunday night's finale delivering the highest numbers of the bunch.

The sixth and final episode of True Detective: Night Country aired on Sunday night with 3.2 million viewers watching on over the course of the evening. That includes those who watched on HBO and on the Max streaming service. That's the biggest audience the show has ever had on its debut night. Last week's episode saw 5 million viewers over the course of the weekend, having been released on Max on Friday in preparation for the Super Bowl on Sunday.

Throughout the season, True Detective: Night Country has averaged 12.7 million viewers per episode when streaming is included. Again, that factors in the viewership since the episodes were released, not just the weeks or weekends when they each debuted.

True Detective: Night Country Ending (SPOILERS AHEAD)

Sunday night's True Detective finale had a very ambiguous ending, as it left the fate of Navarro up to the viewer to interpret. Showrunner Issa L?pez talked with Deadline about the character's mysterious fate.

"I'm not saying that she's alive, and I'm certainly not saying that she's dead," L?pez told Deadline in an interview about the finale. "I very carefully crafted this as an ink blot test for you to discover yourself as an audience member. I do love that Navarro states very early in the series that she has this impulse to just walk away and leave everything behind. On the other hand, the entire series is an exploration of the fact that she feels a calling to the beyond.

"In the climax of the finale, and instead of fighting it and going in with pain and fear, she surrenders to it. And in doing it, she receives a piece of herself. So that call that she was afraid of is solved. The Aboriginal people in Australia go and walk about, find themselves and then come back, which I think is what Kali [Reis] embraced [for the character]. However, there is a chance that she is also going to be with the women before her visit to them. You can read it both ways and it's up to you to interpret which one fulfills your heart."

Even before True Detective: Night Country premiered, showrunner Issa L?pez confirmed that the project's origins were as an entirely original narrative, only for her partnership with HBO to turn it into Season 4 of the Nic Pizzolatto-created True Detective series. Throughout the six-episode season, fans spotted a number of Easter egg references to the debut season, as well as more direct narrative connections to those first episodes, which includes this week's season finale repurposing one of the series' most memorable lines. L?pez has since confirmed how she never aimed to intentionally inject the line, instead that she witnessed an organic opportunity to reference the quote.

WARNING: Spoilers below for the season finale of True Detective: Night Country

In the season finale, when Danvers (Jodie Foster) and Navarro (Kali Reis) confront Clark (Owen McDonnell), he reveals that he and his fellow researchers were ultimately responsible for the death of a woman who discovered the conspiracy their research station were orchestrating. During his manic confession, Clark begins discussing eternal, supernatural figures who view the universe from such a heightened perspective that even time itself is seen as a mere object, as he utters, "Time is a flat circle."

In Season 1, Matthew McConaughey's Rust Cohle made a similar claim using the phrase. While Night Country had a number of Easter eggs to Season 1, L?pez admitted this line wasn't designed as a mere reference.

"I do know that the hardcore Pizzolatto Forever fans are going to perhaps believe that it was put there just to appease them, but it's not true," L?pez confirmed to Entertainment Weekly. "That phrase, it was not something that I planned on putting in the series at all. I think it's super cheesy to say, 'I will find a place to put this.'"

The bigger thematic connection between the two seasons would be the spiral symbol, which ambiguously represented these elder beings. The literal, visual representation of this concept is what surprised L?pez herself about the connections.

"Organically as I was writing the scene, [I thought] if you're going to go with the version of there's something mystical out there in the ice, and there's something in the darkness that is awake and has forever been where this ancient spiral is, and that is also connected to Annie ... Then Clark says Annie has always forever been in that cave, and she will always be there, and all of us are doing the same things forever -- that's a line that I wrote -- I [then realized], because time is a flat circle!" the showrunner joked. "It just came so naturally. And it is a scientist who says it because that concept is based in quantum physics. So it is a scientist who needs to say it."

She continued, "It's absolutely organic and it came from the script ... So it was not an intention, but I love that the connection between this season and the first one was so true organically that the lines were coming from the lips of the characters."

While the first three seasons were entirely disconnected from one another, Night Country marked the first connections between storylines, confirming not only that they unfolded in the same world, but also had direct narrative connections to one another.

Stay tuned for updates on the future of True Detective.

What did you think of the season finale? Let us know in the comments or contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter or on Instagram to talk all things Star Wars and horror!

Terry O'Quinn was, ahem, lost when it came to The Walking Dead. The actor who played John Locke on Lost, Commander Joe White on Hawaii Five-0, and Tom Tavner on Patriot next debuts as CRM Major General Beale on The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live, a character who has been mentioned in the mythology of the Civic Republic Military on The Walking Dead: World Beyond. With the new series (Feb. 25 on AMC) going inside the walls of the Civic Republic, O'Quinn is shedding light on his shadowy character and the moment it dawned on him that he had become part of the Walking Dead Universe.

"It was the zombies, when I finally met the zombies. Because I had told people I hadn't watched The Walking Dead," O'Quinn told ComicBook. "The analogy that I use was there were a lot of trains running at that time and by the time I was aware of that one, it was well down the tracks. So I never really caught up to that."

O'Quinn may not have jumped on the TWD train in time, but with the long-running zombie drama spinning off into new series -- including World Beyond, Dead City, and Daryl Dixon -- the actor had a perfect jumping-on point with help from TWD Universe chief content officer and The Ones Who Live showrunner Scott M. Gimple.

"When Scott called me, I told him I didn't know [The Walking Dead]. He said, 'Well, you shouldn't have to, I can tell you what you need to know,'" O'Quinn continued. "I think -- back in the day when I first saw it -- I saw zombies getting chopped up, and I was like, 'I wanna go to sleep tonight. I just wanna sleep and I don't wanna have that in my head.' But when I saw the zombies, I thought, 'Oh yeah, I'm there now.'"

Also new to the undead franchise is Lucifer actress Lesley-Ann Brandt, who plays CRM Sgt. Major Pearl Thorne, one of the soldiers in Beale's command. Brandt told ComicBook she binged the entire series -- all 11 seasons and 177 episodes -- in less than three weeks to prepare for her role opposite Andrew Lincoln's Rick Grimes.

"It helped that I binged the show from the beginning. I did all the seasons, that's a lot of Walking Dead, and I think I did it in like three weeks," Brandt said. "I felt a responsibility to you, the fans, and also in understanding the tone of the show and what made these two [Rick and Michonne] so special. What was the spark and how does my character come in to help tell that story? And what is my point of view? And what makes me different and similar to these two? Because I think, outside of this world, Michonne and Thorne would have probably been friends. They're two strong women. And I think that plays into a little bit of the chemistry of those two."

Fans will meet Beale and Thorne when The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live -- starring Andrew Lincoln, Danai Gurira, and Pollyanna McIntosh -- premieres February 25 on AMC and AMC+. Stay tuned to ComicBook/TWD and follow on Facebook for more TWD Universe coverage.