Greg Nicotero Says ‘The Walking Dead’ Season 7 Will Be A New World

Published on: June 11, 2016 at 4:18 PM

Greg Nicotero is The Walking Dead creative effects guru and executive producer who has helped transform the AMC show into the ratings juggernaut that it is today. So when Nicotero says that Rick Grimes and his core comrades are about to exist in a whole new world, The Walking Dead fans listen.

Forget for a moment who the victim of Negan was in the Season 6 finale. That is still important, of course, but it does not change the course that The Walking Dead will be steering away on in Season 7. Greg Nicotero can promise you that.

When Greg Nicotero sat down and spoke with IGN ahead of the Universal Studios launch of the Walking Dead attraction, he gave them some details about what kind of world that Rick and his core group will be living in once the show returns in October. One thing that is for sure about it is that no one was ever able to see the world the way they are about to see it now.

Politics in a post-apocalyptic world is still very present, and in many ways, it’s very much the same as before the zombie walkers took over the landscape. The zombies are at the top of the food chain, momentarily, because their food source is somewhat abundant. But that part of the equation is about to run thin and many fans have wondered just how long their rotting bodies will last, even if they do find people to eat.

Season 7 of The Walking Dead kind of touches on that as the momentum that moves the story forward. The world still essentially belongs to the living people. It cannot be changed unless intelligence changes it, which Greg Nicotero says is something that Rick Grimes and Negan will have in common, both learning off of each other and trying to decide if there is a lesser of two evils at play.

Without mentioning who died in the Season 6 finale, Greg Nicotero talked about how the world changes for the core group from Alexandria.

“It propels our people. It affects our people profoundly, as it does in the comic book. That changes everyone’s direction,” Greg Nicotero told IGN .

That change of direction that Greg Nicotero is referring to is not just the core hell-bent on revenge, but rather seeing the world for what it is and finding new ways to survive and build a community that will support each other. That is something that Negan had already done very well on The Walking Dead , and it is something that Rick and the core will do well in the months to come.

“Season 7 of The Walking Dead , there’s all new worlds that we’re going to meet, so it wouldn’t have made sense to end a chapter and then start it halfway through the next chapter,” Greg Nicotero said. “You want to end in one place and pick it up.”

Of course, Season 6 of The Walking Dead found one heck of a way to end the world that fans once knew. But it also gives way to a whole new world that fans of The Walking Dead will need to get used to moving forward, as Greg Nicotero clearly spelled out in his interview.

But Nicotero did have one other thing to talk about in regard to Negan. He isn’t just a cold-blooded psychopath, but also a politician of sorts. Fans of The Walking Dead will be getting a special treat when they get the Season 6 DVD release of The Walking Dead . Greg Nicotero said there were many lines that will be in it that were not present on the show, obviously edited out for broadcast purposes.

“He’s a rock star, that dude,” Greg Nicotero told IGN . “When you watch the DVD [of Season 6], we shot alternate takes [of Negan’s monologue] with him saying ‘f**k’ every other line. On the DVD, you’ll get the full [Negan monologue].”

Fans of The Walking Dead comic book will know instantly what Greg Nicotero is referring to here.

[Photo by Roberto Gonzales/Universal Orlando via Getty Images]

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