'The Walking Dead' Gets Renewed for a 7th Season

A still from AMC's "The Walking Dead," with Andrew Lincoln in the foreground and Chandler Riggs immediately behind him (Photo by AMC Film Holdings LLC)

LOS ANGELES - AMC has greenlit a seventh season to its hit zombie series “The Walking Dead” and a sixth season to the show's postmortem talk show, “Talking Dead.”

Based on Robert Kirkman’s Image Comics graphic novel of the same name, the show has been the network's proverbial 600-pound gorilla with a solid following that has steadily grown over the years. Sunday’s episode, which featured the demise of another series regular, was seen by 18.2 million viewers, with ab12 million adults 18-49 demographic and 11.5 million adults 25-54 in live+3 ratings, according to Nielsen.

Its spinoff series “Fear the Walking Dead,” followed in its footsteps when it set a cable record for the highest rated first season ever by scripted series.

The show tells the story of Sheriff Deputy Rick Grimes, played by British actor Andrew Lincoln, who leads a group of survivors in a world overrun by zombies. It stars Lincoln, Norman Reedus, Melissa McBride, Chandler Riggs, Lauren Cohan, Steven Yeun, Danai Gurira, Sonequa Martin-Green, Michael Cudlitz, Josh McDermitt, Christian Serratos and Lennie James.