Collider’s Steve Weintraub spoke with series creator Eli Jorne, Morgan, Cohan, Gaius Charles, and Željko Ivanek during the 2024 SDCC to discuss how the spin-off could potentially end (if it ever will) while teasing the characters’ journeys throughout Season 2. They also disucess whether the series will end with Maggie killing Negan or Negan killing Maggie. You can hear it all from the crew in the video above, or you can read the transcript below.
Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Lauren Cohan Met on ‘Batman and Superman’
COLLIDER: We’re here to talk about Batman and Superman: Dawn of Justice. I’m talking with Thomas Wayne and his wife, Martha. A lot of people don’t realize you guys are Thomas and Martha Wayne.
JEFFREY DEAN MORGAN: The first time we met was on that. I remember peppering Lauren [Cohan] with all sorts of questions because she had just started The Walking Dead the year before. We were also both on Supernatural. I had done Supernatural on the first season. She came in the second season. We never got to work together. We met in Chicago, shooting the Thomas and Martha Wayne scene, which was super cool.
LAUREN COHAN: Overnight. Chilliest night of anybody’s life.
MORGAN: That’s right. Zack [Snyder] was ahead of his time and was using the 3D cameras and two of them broke that night because it was so cold. They just shattered. So, the scene that we did is the only scene in that movie not shot with a 3D camera.
COHAN: That’s right because we were great in 2D after the fact.
MORGAN: But I think they re-shot the pearls rolling.
‘The Walking Dead: Dead City’ Was A Reset For Negan and Maggie
Jumping into Dead City, one of the reasons why I think the show is so good is that it’s a reset on your characters and situations. I think it adds a lot to it. For both of you who have been playing these characters for so long, what is it like when you’re not in the same sets and you’re doing new things?
MORGAN: It’s been great. When you’re working with a cast of 20 to 30 people like we were doing on the original show, to then be able to shift and, the first year, be able to focus on Maggie and Negan, and what the hell is going on with these characters and take a deeper dive, that’s a big testament to Eli’s writing. And obviously, the actors that are here, Željko and Gaius, added so much to it. But we just get to get deeper into the characters. There’s been so much change since, certainly Maggie at the farmhouse, and Negan walking out of a trailer and what we’ve gone through in the last couple of years. Also, I think adding New York City and getting out of the woods brought a new element to the show that we’ve never really seen before, which is a blast.
COHAN: I can only second it. People are often curious about playing these characters for a long time, and as Jeffrey said, Eli was able to give us a story that took a new angle on them. It’s already so enticing to see two enemies now forced on the road together. But it’s not just about the collision between us, it’s about seeing who we are, because it’s a smaller cast and a deeper story. I think that there is so much in the story up to this point in the original Walking Dead, where you saw people surviving, and you saw deeper personal questions at different points. But this is all our show is now.—these horrible, oppressive environments that force real questions about character constantly. That’s what we get to do with Gaius and Željko and Lisa [Emery], who’s not here. Our whole story, putting it in New York City, it’s just a bit harsher in every way that it could be and bleaker. I’m not going to say way more fun—it’s way more fun. [Laughs]
Will ‘The Walking Dead’ Franchise End?
I’m curious, will the show end with Maggie putting a bullet in Negan’s head?
MORGAN: I’m curious too.
COHAN: Well, then where’s the show? Yeah, I hope not.
ELI JORNE: I don’t want to say never, but I don’t know. Maybe it ends with Negan putting a bullet in Maggie’s head. Who knows?
MORGAN: We’re going to be really old.
JOURNE: We won’t need any bullets by then. Negan’s going to fall and hurt his head.
When this thing starts getting put together, how much is everyone thinking about a three-season plan or a five-season plan? How much is it like, “Let’s just see how this goes in Season 1?”
JORNE: I like to always have a plan. I’m a planning sort of guy. But you never want to get too specific. We have these new characters, like The Croat and Armstrong, and you need to create room for those characters to grow. I, myself, get surprised by little things. It’s always a conversation with the actors as they inhabit the characters, and we have other writers that come in, and it grows and grows. But I like to think of ending points.
I’m going to get specific. In your mind, are you thinking this could be five years? The fact is, The Walking Dead is incredibly popular, and it’s not slowed down. Who knows?
JORNE: Who knows? First off, is it even up to me?
MORGAN: Hopefully we would know that the show was going to end. I would hope that AMC would give us a heads-up. Then Eli can write accordingly. Because it would suck if you found out that the show was done after we shot the season. It’s very open-ended.
JORNE: I never want that to happen. I definitely have ideas of where I’d like to see everything go, but it’s just a question of if we’ve got more seasons to fill out and explore and get deeper and deeper and make the world bigger. I’m all for it.
Željko Ivanet’s ‘Homicide’ Is Available on Streaming
I’ve got to ask Željko an individual question, and it has nothing to do with The Walking Dead. So, Homicide [Life on the Street] is finally coming to streaming, which is amazing. Talk a little bit about your time on Homicide because a lot of people consider it one of the best shows. I’m curious what you remember and what it means to you to finally come into streaming.
ŽELJKO IVANET: I consider it one of the best shows. That was Tom Fontana and Barry Levinson. It was just an incredible cast, for starters. I had worked for Tom; I was his assistant at a theater a few years before that, and he went on St. Elsewhere and then created Homicide. It was just one of the best casts on television ever. The looseness of that show, the way we shot. You were shooting entire scenes beginning to end, the camera moved around, then you cut it together. It didn’t matter if you were here in one take and there in the other take, they just cut it and left it. The energy that was created on the set was just phenomenal. And Baltimore itself, also. That was one of the first shows that was shot down there and really used the city in that way. I don’t know where it got stuck. It was probably music rights and whatever’s been going on for all these years. So, I’m glad it’s out there because it’s such a cohesive planet of a show that so many incredible people came out of.
MORGAN: Who’s streaming it? That’s amazing.
IVANET: I think Peacock. It was an NBC show originally.
JORNE: Can I say another giant, awesome thing that needs to come to streaming somehow is the movie French Kiss. You can’t find it anywhere. Just so everyone knows, whoever’s out there, make French Kiss available. This is my activist moment here.
This is also the reason physical media is so important.
A War Is Coming to ‘Dead City’ Season 2
I have to ask you about Season 2. Let’s just talk about how much time has passed since Season 1. For each of you, talk a little bit about what you can tease about your character’s journey and what’s coming up.
JORNE: It’s been about 6 months.
GAIUS CHARLES: A few months have passed, and all I can say is that a war is coming. I am suiting up and suiting other people up for war.
IVANET: You were saying that Season 1 was a reset from The Walking Dead for these characters, and it feels like Season 2 is a reset of Season 1 because all these alliances shift around, and people find themselves on very different sides for reasons they didn’t expect. That, to me, is the cool thing. It’s always going to go in who knows what direction. It feels like every season can do that, and that’s one of the coolest things about this one.
MORGAN: I feel like Negan is in trouble. I think it’s going to be the most vulnerable that we get to see him—maybe that we’ve ever seen him. He’s in deep shit, and he has to figure a way out of it.
COHAN: I had a really great season. You always hope that it’s going to be challenging and high stakes. Every single episode has some giant pinnacle, both emotionally and physically, and in our set pieces and the intersections. We all get to collide with each other, honestly. It’s one of the most satisfying seasons of television I’ve ever been a part of. I got to the end of one episode and thought, “I don’t even need this to come out.” I had such a great time. I had such a great time individually with each of these gentlemen, doing episodes and having work together that was really satisfying and hard, new territory. So, that’s my big tease. And I directed them all, as well. I directed Episode 6 this year.
Did you direct the finale?
COHAN: No, we have eight episodes this season. I directed the penultimate-penultimate.
The Walking Dead: Dead City Season 2 premieres on AMC in 2025. While we wait, refresh on Season 1 of Dead City, available to stream now on AMC in the U.S.
