The Walking Dead: World Beyond – Picture: AMC
The Walking Dead franchise is getting another entry in 2020 with the release of season 1 of The Walking Dead: World Beyond. Will World Beyond be coming to Netflix like the main series in the United States or internationally or will it be streaming elsewhere. Let’s dive into the streaming rights of The Walking Dead: World Beyond.
Although The Walking Dead isn’t at the height of popularity anymore, it’s still a bit ratings driver for AMC who relies on this license and the Breaking Bad for its networks survival.
The third entry in The Walking Dead franchise is due to release in Spring 2020 and is set to cover the first generation who grows up during the zombie apocalypse.
Now let’s dive into the streaming plans for The Walking Dead: World Beyond.
Where will The Walking Dead: World Beyond stream in the United States?
The domestic SVOD rights for The Walking Dead: World Beyond are being held back and not being shipped out to Netflix (who holds The Walking Dead) or Hulu (who holds the rights to Fear The Walking Dead).
That means the only way you’ll be able to watch The Walking Dead: World Beyond is by either catching it live or using the AMC catch-up application.
The reason behind keeping the show away from the likes of Netflix or Hulu was discussed by the current CEO of AMC in October 2019. In the interview, it was said that “AMC Networks won’t license the recently unveiled third series in the Walking Dead franchise.”
AMC and similar networks have been reluctant to license some of their newer properties but whether that strategy plays off going forward is yet to be seen.
Will The Walking Dead: World Beyond be on Netflix outside the US (internationally)?
Outside the United States, some regions will see the SVOD rights go to Amazon (who holds international rights to Fear The Walking Dead) but in most cases, you’ll find it available on the AMC equivalent in that region.
This was confirmed in the aforementioned interview with Josh Sapan who said:
The monetization plan for the new upcoming third series of the Walking Dead universe is this: we did a deal earlier this month with Amazon to distribute that series internationally outside of territories where our AMC global channels will air it. However, in the U.S., we are holding back rights that we have traditionally sold to third parties. So domestically we will not sell the SVOD rights to this third Walking Dead series, but rather the series will be used to fuel our own platforms, both streaming, as well as linear as we window it and take full advantage of the opportunities that it presents to us.
In the United Kingdom, for example, it’s expected World Beyond will only available live on the AMC channel.
Are you disappointed you won’t be watching The Walking Dead: World Beyond on Netflix? Will you watch on AMC now it’s withheld the rights? Let us know in the comments.
