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‘The Walking Dead’ Creator Robert Kirkman Leaving AMC, Skybound Signs 2-Year Deal With Amazon Prime

By Tony Smejek
Published on: 04:25 PST, Aug 11, 2017

Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman has signed a two-year first-look deal between his Skybound Entertainment company and Amazon Studios, according the Hollywood Reporter. This means Kirkman’s company has made an exclusive deal to create content specifically for the Amazon Prime platform for that amount of time.

Kirkman points out that Amazon has the kind of forward thinking he’s looking for in such a deal. He is also cited saying that Skybound is looking out for the “most unique and creative ways in an effort to always break new ground.” This would make sense as Robert Kirkman has been quite creative in his world building process when it comes The Walking Dead.

Robert also mentions that Sharon Tal Yguado, who was announced as the head of event series back in January (via Deadline Hollywood) “has been an instrumental force in the success of The Walking Dead and Outcast from day one.” This was a recently created job for Sharon, and this division was touted as “focused on the development and production of big scope, big event genre series.”

That said, Yguado does hold Robert Kirkman in high regard when it comes to recognizing his creativity as being boundless in his projects via Skybound. Apparently, she envisions his uniqueness in a method of “elevated genre storytelling.” Season 6 of The Walking Dead made this known via Jesus when he let the people of Alexandria know about their world getting bigger. This could be a big selling point with Amazon Prime and whatever future projects Kirkman has planned.

This is somehow ironic that fiction transverses into reality in the form of the Skybound/Amazon contract.

Sharon had her hand in The Walking Dead when she initially supervised its worldwide launch along with having created the Outcast series for television. It appears that between these details and her contribution, it would make sense that Kirkman would make such a deal with Amazon Prime.

“Robert and the team at Skybound are some of the most innovative and fearless creatives in the business. Together, we plan to explore immersive worlds and bold ideas for Prime Video.”

This also sounds reasonable because The Walking Dead is in alignment with those qualifications. But what does this mean for the AMC series?

At this point, Kirkman’s Skybound Entertainment properties contracted with AMC and other venues “will play out their current season-order contracts.”

Additionally, i09 said they’d follow up with details on that, considering they had reached out to Skybound for comment.

This announcement shortly followed Netflix’s comic book creator acquisition regarding Millarworld. Then there is Disney’s move to leave Netflix to go in their own direction with their own streaming platform.

In 2015, the Walking Dead creator signed a multiyear contract with AMC for future projects, excluding his Cinemax’s Outcast. According to the Hollywood Reporter, this will be major “blow” to the network.

[Featured Image by Tommaso Boddi/Getty Images]

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