The Walking Dead Season 10 Finale Delayed Due to Coronavirus

The Season 10 finale of The Walking Dead will not air as scheduled on April 12, AMC announced Tuesday, due to the global entertainment industry shutdown resulting from the coronavirus pandemic bringing post-production on the episode to a halt. The current season will instead end with the 15th episode of the season, "The Tower," on April 5, with the finale, "A Certain Doom," airing later this year at a date to be determined.

"Current events have unfortunately made it impossible to complete post-production of The Walking Dead Season 10 finale, so the current season will end with its 15th episode on Sunday, April 5," AMC said in a statement. "The planned finale will appear as a special episode later in the year."

Additionally, AMC announced that the first eight episodes of The Walking Dead Season 10 will be available for free on AMC.com and the AMC app, immediately following the last Season 10 episode on Sunday, April 5 until Friday, May 1.

Two more episodes of The Walking Dead's tenth season will air before the delay, this Sunday's "Look at the Flowers" and Episode 15, "The Tower," on April 5.

Executive producer Greg Nicotero gave some context for the delay in the comments of the show's Instagram post about the postponement."Post production for those who are curious involves VFX, music, sound mixing and sound FX," Nicotero wrote. "This process usually goes up to about 3 weeks from air date. I'm finding out about this same time you guys are and it's disappointing but the episode will not disappoint. Be safe everyone."

This is not the coronavirus pandemic's only impact on the Walking Dead franchise. Production of Season 6 of Fear the Walking Dead has been suspended, and the start of physical production on Season 11 of The Walking Dead has been pushed back indefinitely, though the writers are still at work. And the premiere of new spin-off The Walking Dead: World Beyond, which was scheduled for immediately after The Walking Dead's Season 10 finale, has been tabled until later in the year.

It's not all bad news, though. The Walking Dead's crew members donated their safety equipment to Atlanta-area hospitals to help out with the effort to fight the coronavirus.

The Walking Dead airs Sundays at 9/8c on AMC.