Variety reports that Walking Dead icon Greg Nicotero will direct the pilot and serve as executive producer for Monarch Media's Swan Song. Nicotero continues to be plugged into The Walking Dead universe, working in SFX on Dead City and producing for Daryl Dixon. Both series will release new seasons in 2025.
Swan Song will adapt Robert McCammon's sci-fi novel that focuses on the aftermath of a nuclear war. In 1987, Swan Song tied with Stephen King's Misery for the Bram Stoker Award. The story will be adapted by the combined team of Russell Rothberg as writer, executive producer, and showrunner, Nicotero as director of the pilot, Monarch Media, and Brian Witten’s Monster Agency Productions. Nicotero and Witten will executive produce with Steve Barnett, Alan Powell, and Vicky Patel of Monarch Media. Brandi Hagedorn will co-produce.
Official log line for the series: “Following the U.S. government’s nuclear showdown with an unprecedented malevolent enemy, the world, as it was, is gone forever. In its place is a society whose remaining citizens are caught in a life and death struggle to stay alive in a wasteland born of rage and fear, populated by monstrous creatures and marauding armies. One small girl offers a glimmer of hope against a supernatural being hell bent on the planet’s destruction.”
Currently no cast members have been announced for the series.
Greg Nicotero - life after The Walking Dead
Nicotero began his Walking Dead journey before the series was greenlit by AMC Networks. He started in SFX, and in season 2 would also become a director. He has worn many hats during his TWDU career even working on many of the spinoff series.
In 2024, Nicotero worked on Prime Video's Fallout as a prosthetic makeup designer. This series is an adaptation of the same-titled role playing video game and stars Ella Purnell, Walt Goggins, and more.
Next, he and his KNB EFX Group will lead makeup effects in the seventh and final installment of George A. Romero's Living Dead franchise, Twilight of the Dead, and Tina Romero's Queen of the Dead. He will also work in SFX for M.J. Bassett's horror film, Lullaby, and Jeff Buhler's Black River.
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