With The Walking Dead franchise returning Sept. 29 via Daryl Dixon — The Book of Carol, the second season of the spinoff series will unfold as Norman Reedus‘ titular character takes on the zombie apocalypse — this time in the dilapidated walls of the Louvre in Paris, France.
“Orchestrating that was really difficult and complicated,” showrunner and executive producer David Zobel said of securing filming in the renowned art museum in a new cover story with Entertainment Weekly.
“When Norman and I first talked about the show, we loved the juxtaposition of being in a place like France, which is all about high culture and beautiful architecture and high fashion, and juxtaposing that against the apocalypse, which is everything falling apart and everything’s sh–ty.”
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He added, “The Louvre was always a place that we wanted to film,” and would allow the series to provide context to the rise of the series’ main antagonist, Anne Charrier’s Marion Genet, the dictatorial leader of an extremist paramilitary organization called Pouvoir du Vivant (Power of the Living).
Reedus, who previously revealed to EW that shooting would sprawl across the French countryside and notable Parisian landmarks (including the Catacombs), confirmed: “That is the real Mona Lisa” audiences will get a glimpse of in the show.
Around 500 shoots take place annually at the Louvre, per the New York Times in 2018, and it costs an estimated 15,000 euros to book a full day’s shoot in the galleries. Notable projects filmed inside its hallowed halls include Beyoncé and Jay-Z’s “APESH–” music video and The Da Vinci Code.
The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon — The Book of Carol has already been renewed for a third season, with filming currently underway in Spain, based in Madrid and taking place across the Galicia, Aragon, Catalonia and Valencia regions. A top performer for AMC+, Reedus, who also serves as EP, said he could continue to play the eponymous zombie-killing biker for “maybe six or seven more years.”
Season 2 kicks off with both Daryl and Carol (Melissa McBride) confronting old demons, as the former struggles with his decision to stay in France, the origin of the apocalypse-bringing virus, causing tension in the Nest, and the latter fights to locate her friend in the U.S. Meanwhile, Genet’s movement builds momentum, setting her organization on a violent collision course with the Union of Hope in the fight for France’s future.
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