One of the most popular name brands in modern pop culture history is about to be up for grabs. AMC is gearing up to sell the “next round of rights” to The Walking Dead, and, reportedly, several major companies are interested.
Deals for the licensing of a show end after a certain amount of time, which is why you see a big show like The Office or Battlestar Galactica on Netflix for a few years, then on Peacock for a few years. That’s what’s happening here, and while AMC plans to keep some of the rights for itself, it’s exploring all other options, according to Deadline.
“We’ve been really excited about the inbound for discussion on the licensing rights for The Walking Dead,” CEO Kristin Dolan said on an earnings call this week. “We’re really looking at every scenario. There’s a variety of ways to look at it. We definitely feel it’s important to keep some of the content for ourselves co-exclusively, so we’re emphasizing the fact that we’re looking predominantly at co-exclusive deals, but there are some very large and enthusiastic partners in the bidding process right now. So, we’re really looking at any variety of constructs, but the key thing for us is co-exclusivity.”
There’s no word on which “large and enthusiastic partners” she’s talking about, but there are only so many options these days. There’s obviously Netflix, which has been the home for several AMC shows in the past, including The Walking Dead. Then there’s also HBO Max, Prime Video, Paramount+, Apple TV, and Peacock. Some mix of those is, surely, what Dolan is referring to.
And while no specific numbers were given as the deals are still being negotiated, shows like Friends, The Office, and Seinfeld have sold their rights for upwards of $500 million each. Just last year, the rights to South Park sold for a whopping $1.5 billion. Deadline doesn’t think The Walking Dead will approach anything like that, but something in the hundreds of millions is accurate. Especially when you consider the rights presumably include not just 11 seasons of the main show but probably also eight seasons of Fear the Walking Dead and maybe even the more recent spinoffs like Daryl Dixon, The Ones Who Lived, and Dead City. There is a lot of Walking Dead content out there.
What does this mean to you, the viewer, though? Not much, honestly. It means that if you want to rewatch episodes of The Walking Dead and its spinoffs, you’ll have to go to another streamer. Maybe you get some more cool merchandise too. But also, if you have a few hundred million and want to be the exclusive streaming host for The Walking Dead, give AMC a call.
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