Just like the Image/Skybound comic book series from Robert Kirkman and Charlie Adlard, The Walking Dead will go on and on...at least if AMC Networks CEO Josh Sapan has his way.
In an article for The Hollywood Reporter, Sapan is asked about the end of acclaimed AMC shows Breaking Bad, Mad Men and The Walking Dead while attending the Barclays Global Technology, Media and Telecommunications Conference. "We’ll all suffer from some minor heartbreak when these shows come to a natural close," said Sapan. "Like some of the best shows in history, there will be a mantle that exists sort of virtually in people’s minds, and in the world maybe they’ll actually put a statue somewhere. We will bring them to a close with the people who created them at the right time."
The Walking Dead, meanwhile, recently ended its third season and is currently filming the fourth with apparently no end in sight. "We hope that zombies live forever and we’ve just begun to find out what the post-apocalyptic world is like," said Sapan, "so that we’ll be sitting here at the Barclays conference in 2022 discussing the fact that Walking Dead is not over. At that point, I think any one of the companies will have replaced the United States government and we’ll be in a complete free enterprise world in which there are no nations."
Issue #113 of The Walking Dead comic series is currently scheduled for August 2013, almost ten years since its debut in October 2003. With each season of The Walking Dead television series covering roughly twelve issues (or two trade paperbacks), there could potentially be at least ten TV seasons even if the top-selling comic abruptly ended publication.
As long as the ratings hold up, of course.