The Walking Dead creator has said the coronavirus pandemic will make the upcoming Rick Grimes spin-off movie “better”.

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The film was first announced in November 2018, after Andrew Lincoln left the role of Grimes in the AMC TV series.

Speaking during Skybound Entertainment’s Skybound Xpo panel, creator Robert Kirkman gave an update on the movie. “There’s tons of stuff going on behind the scenes,” he said. “I don’t want anyone to think that we’re just kind of waiting around for this pandemic to end.”

He continued: “I would say that, if anything, the pandemic is going to make a lot of movies better. I think the Rick Grimes movie chief among them, just because we’re getting a lot more time to cook this thing and make sure it’s perfect.”

“We’re coming along in a big way,” executive producer David Alpert added. “We’re just in this particular space where we have [to wait]. We can’t shoot right now, so that’s just the big thing holding us back.”

Alpert said that the crew was “desperate” to return to the production and said the project was “something really exciting, really unique, really different”.

The as-yet-untitled movie is the first in a planned trio of films to focus on Grimes and is set to reveal what happened to him and Anne (Pollyanna McIntosh) after they were taken away by a Civic Republic Military helicopter.

McIntosh recently teased that she could appear in the movie, telling fans during the virtual GalaxyCon Live event: “I may or may not be doing a Walking Dead film that Andy [Andrew Lincoln] is involved in, playing Rick. Let’s see what happens.”