In the summer of 2025, AMC announced a new competition series, Guts & Glory, from award-winning SFX master and Walking Dead executive producer and director Greg Nicotero. The series will roll out in September as part of Shudder's 10-year anniversary.
Guts & Glory will debut the first two episodes of the six-part series on Tuesday, September 9, on Shudder and AMC+. Nicotero first announced the news at The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon San Diego Comic-Con panel.
The exciting new reality series "flips the script" of a traditional competition by blending elements of horror films and the competitiveness of survival games into a reality series that fully immerses contestants into unexpected challenges within a horror setting.
The AMC production is executive produced by Nicotero and Brian Witten from Monster Agency Productions, Chris Wagner from White Label, and Andrew Molina from Salaryman. Jeffrey F. January serves as co-executive producer.
Below is the recently released official trailer for Guts & Glory, which highlights what viewers can expect from the series. At first, the contestants don't know what they are in for, but it quickly becomes clear that they have found themselves in the middle of a horror film.
Nicotero is well known within the world of horror for his work in special effects, and he is a founder of KNB EFX Group, Inc., a powerhouse in make-up effects for over 35 years. The group specializes in character prosthetics, animatronics, creature creation, and replica animals, and the work has been featured in over 800 feature films and TV shows. These include Inglourious Basterds, Oz the Great and Powerful, Lone Survivor, Breaking Bad, Predators, Hitchcock, The Green Mile, Sin City, and many more. KNB has received numerous nominations and awards for its work on The Walking Dead and The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.
Next, Nicotero will write and direct the pilot of an adaptation of Robert McCammon's award-winning post-apocalyptic novel Swan Song. Russell Rothberg (American Gigolo, The Offer, Long Bright River) has been announced as the series's showrunner and will write and executive produce. McCammon's novel tied with Stephen King's Misery for the 1988 Bram Stoker Award.
The 1975 movie Jaws celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2025. Nicotero, production designer Joe Alves, and FX genius Roy Arbogast from KNB were instrumental in the restoration of "Bruce the Shark" for the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures. A special Jaws: The Exhibition will be featured at the museum from September 14, 2025, to July 26, 2026. Nicotero also contributed insight for the Jaws @ 50 documentary that premiered on National Geographic in July and is streaming on Disney+ and Hulu.
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