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Following the exit of Andrew Lincoln from The Walking Dead (see Alasdair Stuart’s review of the episode here), AMC has revealed its further plans for the franchise.

Lincoln himself isn’t disappearing from The Walking Dead universe: “It’s not the beginning of the end, it’s the end of the beginning,” he said after the episode had aired. AMC Studios are producing a series of films that will feature Lincoln as Grimes, written by Scott M. Gimple.

“We have a lot on the horizon – starting with a new epic featuring one of the greatest leading actors in television history and one of the best people I’ve ever met,” said Gimple. “These films are going to be big evolutions of what we’ve been doing on the show, with the scope and scale of features. We’re starting with the first part of the continuing story of Rick Grimes, and there is much more on the way, featuring yet-unseen worlds of The Walking Dead and faces from the show’s past, as well as new characters we hope to become favourites, told by TWD veterans and emerging voices. We want to break new ground with different, distinct stories, all part of the same world that’s captured our imagination for nearly a decade of the Dead.”

“We believe this is a world and narrative with many possibilities and opportunities for character development and we’re excited to expand the series into a franchise that can live across multiple formats,” David Madden, president of original programming for AMC, SundanceTV and AMC Studios added. “For many years, fans have talked about things in the apocalypse they want to see and now we have an opportunity to explore those stories, beginning with the character who started it all, Rick Grimes.”

Lincoln isn’t the only one who may move among different iterations of the franchise. Norman Reedus and Melissa McBride have also signed deals that allow them to show up elsewhere in the TWD universe.

“The deals that we made for Norman and Melissa are franchise deals. Our deals with Norman and Melissa allow us the flexibility to either move them or use them in more than one place, depending on what seems creatively right to Scott and to his partners,” AMC programming president David Madden told The Hollywood Reporter.  “We do look at this as a universe where we’re trying to expand into as many different places as the show fits. We think this is a franchise that could live across formats. So we want to do it carefully; we want to be strategic; we want to try to do it right. But there is a multi-year plan that could include additional series, digital content and specials.”