The Walking Dead

The flagship series ended in 2022, but AMC immediately launched a three-pronged spinoff strategy: Dead City (Negan and Maggie in a ruined Manhattan), Daryl Dixon (which relocated the franchise to France and then Spain), and The Ones Who Live (Rick and Michonne's long-awaited reunion), all landing between 2023 and 2024 and all renewed for additional seasons. Fear the Walking Dead wrapped earlier, leaving this trio as the active core of the universe heading into 2026.

Our read is that AMC made the correct bet by treating the IP as a shared universe rather than trying to force a single successor series to recapture the original's peak — Daryl Dixon's European relocation in particular was a genuinely interesting creative swing rather than a safe retread. But the franchise has clearly shrunk from a mainstream cultural event into a reliable, mid-size AMC+ subscription driver, and nothing in the current slate suggests it's trying to be must-watch TV again so much as dependable IP maintenance.

Keep an eye on whether AMC lets any of these spinoffs end on their own terms or keeps extending them indefinitely — Daryl Dixon's move to a second European location already shows a franchise more interested in longevity than narrative closure.