The Walking Dead: World Beyond pushes release date due to coronavirus

The world of The Walking Dead is based around a global pandemic that crumbles society, and now the newest offering in the franchise has become a victim of the coronavirus sweeping the globe.

AMC announced on social media that it had pushed The Walking Dead: World Beyond from its scheduled April 12 premiere date to “later this year.” The news was unexpected because the entire first season of the two-season limited series had already wrapped production. AMC released a brief statement on the news, saying, "Given current circumstances, we have decided to shift the premiere of the new series The Walking Dead: World Beyond to later in the year."

The date change news on World Beyond is most likely related to other delays in The Walking Dead franchise and AMC programming in general. Fear the Walking Dead recently had to extend its planned one-week filming hiatus by two more weeks, while The Walking Dead, which was supposed to commence filming on season 11 at the start of May, has delayed the start production by three weeks.

More delays could obviously be in the works on both those shows as Hollywood continues to monitor conditions related to COVID-19. With Fear only having close to half of season 6 in the can, and TWD having nothing, AMC’s delay of World Beyond could help the network shore up programming for later in the year if other content is not ready for air. Also, while filming on World Beyond was complete, there could be post-production on the later episodes that had yet to be completed.

Either way, the viral zombie outbreak on TV will have to wait while the real-life virus continues to wreak havoc.

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