The undead have been called walkers, biters and many other names throughout the history of The Walking Dead. The upcoming new series, The Walking Dead: World Beyond, has come up with another one -- empties -- and showrunner Matt Negrete explains why.
"When [fellow showrunner] Scott [Gimple] and I were working on this pilot and talking about the show in general, it's always that question of, 'What do they call walkers in this corner of the universe?'" when Negrete was asked about the term in the show's Comic-Con@Home panel Friday. "And I started thinking about something Robert Kirkman put in one of the comics. There was a character who also used this phrase, and I just loved the term, and it was 'empties.'"
"So I'm basically straight up cribbing Robert Kirkman, is the short answer," Negrete joked.
"Which is fine!" moderator Chris Hardwick chimed back.
The term did in fact originate in Image Comics' The Walking Dead #92, when it was first uttered by then-new character Paul "Jesus" Monroe in the 2011 issue.
"Thematically, it felt relevant to the show because Iris [played by Aliyah Royale] in the pilot is dreaming that she's dead because she felt empty inside," Negrete said.
The series takes place 10 years into the undead apocalypse, and focuses on a group of young survivors with little memory of the old world.
Created by Scott Gimple, Robert Kirkman and Matt Negrete, The Walking Dead: World Beyond stars Aliyah Royale, Alexa Mansour, Annet Mahendru, Nicolas Cantu, Hal Cumpston and Nico Tortorella. The series debuts Oct. 4 at 10 p.m. ET on AMC.