By Dakota Cantwell

Rick Grimes may have flown away from the “The Walking Dead” series, but Andrew Lincoln is not done with the character.

Chief Content Officer Scott M. Gimple announced, on the “Talking Dead” after Grimes last episode, that Grimes’ story will continue in the form of “AMC original movies.”

“These films are going to be big evolutions of what we’ve been doing on the show, with the scope and scale of features,” Gimple said in a press release following the announcement. “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 favorites, 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’.”

During the interview on the “Talking Dead”, Gimple stressed that Grimes would not be returning to “The Walking Dead.”

“It’s not the beginning of the end, it’s the end of the beginning,” Lincoln said in his appearance on the same “Talking Dead” episode. “And I like the idea that we get to tell a bigger story, maybe with a sort of wider vista. And I’ve always been interested in what’s going on out there, you know, whether or not there is contact with the wider world. I want to know the meta of it all. And I suppose to be able to kind of touch upon that in a contained story for me is a very exciting proposition … Maybe it’s the start of a bigger story.”

The exit of Grimes and the conversation about the movies took place as far back as season four of “The Walking Dead.” Gimple and Lincoln decided that the exit for Grimes would be season 8 because he intends to spend more time with his “young” family.

Lincoln told The Hollywood Reporter that it was the original plan for Grimes to die in season 8. Lincoln said that the plan evolved in a way that was more logical for the actor and for AMC to expand the franchise.

The story for Lincoln’s contract broke on Sunday after his final episode, but this was hinted at earlier in 2018 by Lincoln. At the Walking Dead panel during the 2018 San Diego Comic-Con, Lincoln said, “My relationship with Mr. Grimes is far from over.”

The movies will follow what happens to Rick after the “What Comes After” episode of “The Walking Dead.” Gimple said that the movies will explore what Grimes goes through during the three-year time jump (according to The Hollywood Reporter) that was featured at the end of Sunday’s episode.

“It is about who he is and who he’s going to be,” Gimple said. “And certainly how he deal with the situation he’s in. We know Rick Grimes, he would want to be home.”

Filming for the first movie will begin in 2019 and each film is expected to take 2 months of filming to complete.