The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon executive producer Greg Nicotero teased the introduction of a brand-new walker variant in the upcoming second season of the AMC spinoff. Nicotero has been part of The Walking Dead team since the original series made its debut in 2010.
During a recent interview with EW, Nicotero confirmed that Daryl Dixon Season 2 will feature another terrifying zombie variant in the form of bioluminescent walkers. The special make-up effects veteran, who’s partly known for his work on George A. Romero’s Day of the Dead movie, explained the process of creating this new type of zombie.
"During the strike, I came back to the States last year, and we were talking about the bioluminescent zombies," he shared. "And 70 percent of that was practical effects. We had LED lights, and we also had this black light wildfire system where we would paint the backside of silicone prosthetics with a black light-activated bioluminescent paint. And if you watch the outtakes of that scene, you'll literally see my team standing there with black lights right on the zombie's faces. A lot of what VFX did was augment, by taking a lot of the bioluminescence and spreading it up the walls of the cave."
In the first season of Daryl Dixon, fans were introduced to super-fast walkers, called the ampers, who were experimented on zombies with an unknown substance, making them more dangerous than your average walkers. Nicotero revealed that the ampers will have a different look in Season 2.
"Now we have a better indication in Season 2 of how these ampers play a really important part in Genet’s quest for power,” Nicotero said. "We wanted to make sure that they looked different, so we went with black contact lenses. The inspiration was some stuff that we did on The Faculty, and then Scanners, where you see these veins kind of traveling underneath the skin."
The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon - The Book of Carol is executive produced by showrunner David Zabel. The next installment will be led by returning franchise vets Norman Reedus and Melissa McBride, as they reprise their fan-favorite roles as Daryl and Carol, respectively. They will be joined by Clémence Poésy, Louis Puech Scigliuzzi, Laika Blanc Francard, Anne Charrier, Romain Levi and Eriq Ebouaney. The official synopsis for Season 2 reads, “The story picks up where Season 1 left off, following Daryl and Carol. They both confront old demons while she fights to find her friend, and he struggles with his decision to stay in France, causing tension at the Nest. Additionally, Genet's movement builds momentum, setting Pouvoir on a violent collision course with the Union of Hope in the fight for France's future.”
Daryl Dixon Season 3 in Production
Ahead of Daryl Dixon Season 2’s premiere on Sept. 29, AMC previously confirmed that production on the show’s third installment had already started, as Daryl and Carol’s journey home brings them from France to Spain. Season 3 will also feature a new set of characters, portrayed by Spanish actors Eduardo Noriega (In the Fire), Oscar Jaenada (Chaos Walking), Alexandra Masangkay (The Platform), Candela Saitta (Maxima) and Hugo Arbues (Through My Window). At the moment, it's unclear if series regulars from the first two seasons would still be included in the third season or not.
