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Lauren Cohan will film only six episode of season nine (Picture: Gene Page/AMC)
Longtime cast member Lauren Cohan will leave The Walking Dead after six episodes of the new season.
Cohan, who plays strong-willed farmer Maggie Greene, first appeared on the show in season two and has since gone on to feature in a whopping 108 episodes.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Cohan has opted to leave the long-running zombie series after booking the lead in ABC’s upcoming FBI series Whiskey Cavalier; efforts to renegotiate a deal were unsuccessful and Cohan will reportedlu shoot only six episodes of season nine.
The news comes just days after it was announced that face of the franchise Andrew Lincoln will leave the programme.
Lincoln plays the central role of Rick Grimes – a former sheriff deputy who was shot in the line of duty. The Walking Dead director Michael Satrazemis confirmed his exit on Instagram recently, paying tribute to ‘one of the greatest men I have ever met’.
❤️ A post shared by norman reedus (@bigbaldhead) on May 31, 2018 at 7:11pm PDT
He also assured fans that the next series of the show would still be ‘great’, but ‘different’.
Lincoln will be phased out of the post-apocalyptic narrative in a similar way to Lauren Cohan and will also only shoot around six episodes of season nine.
With two of its biggest characters heading towards the exit, The Walking Dead will instead make Norman Reedus’ Daryl Dixon the main protagonist going forward.
Norman Reedus’s Daryl Dixon will take centre stage going forward (Picture: Gene Page/AMC)
Dixon is a former Prison Council member, hunter for the Atlanta Survivor Group and last surviving member of his family.
Reedus has reportedly negotiated a $20million pay bump to account for his increased screen time.
Cohan’s exit from The Walking Dead comes just weeks after she told Entertainment Weekly there was ‘a lot more Maggie story to tell’ on the show.
‘I’m coming back,’ she confirmed. You know we’re not allowed to tell you anything, but it’s so good.’
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MORE: The Walking Dead’s Norman Reedus responds to Andrew Lincoln’s exit with heartbreaking photo
MORE: ‘The show will still be great’: The Walking Dead director confirms Andrew Lincoln’s exit
duaneap on June 3rd, 2018 at 23:51 UTC »
At this rate, season 10 is basically just going to be that motorcycle show Ride with Norman Reedus just with zombies in the background.
Guyfromnewyork95 on June 3rd, 2018 at 23:19 UTC »
Look at the flowers AMC.
conquer69 on June 3rd, 2018 at 22:46 UTC »
So the next season hasn't even started and people already know who is getting killed and when? What a fucking mess this show has become.