The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live has been a long time in the making, and its budget suggests that AMC are expecting big things.

The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live has reported set its sights on being one of the biggest Walking Dead universe shows ever – at least in terms of the budget AMC has pumped into the zombie series.

According to a new report from New Jersey Economic Development Authority, AMC have certainly not been shy about the amount of money they have been willing to put into the series that brings Rick and Michonne Grimes to the franchise. The total budget for The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live reportedly comes to a total of $82 million, which, split across its six episodes, equates to somewhere in the region of $13.7 million an episode. This is more than enough to beat out The Walking Dead: Dead City, which reported a cost of $12 million per episode. For comparison with the rest of the franchise, the original 2010 debut season of The Walking Dead and many of its subsequent early seasons, cost around $3 million per episode.

Naturally, a lot of this budget is spent on the cast, and bringing back Andrew Lincoln’s Rick and Danai Gurira’s Michonne – two of the show’s biggest stars – is obviously going to cause a sizable dent in any cable budget. While The Walking Dead is still a long way from the super-budgets of the likes of Stranger Things ($30 million per episode) or The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power ($58 million per episode), there is still a lot riding on this new spin-off series being a hit for AMC.

The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live is Bringing Back More Characters

The latest Walking Dead spin-off has already revealed the first footage of Andrew Lincoln and Danai Gurira as Rick Grimes and Michonne, and last month Entertainment Weekly revealed the return of another iconic character from the franchise with a first look at Pollyanna McIntosh’s Jadis making her latest appearance in the zombie saga.

The Walking Dead has seen many antagonists come and go, but some get more than one bite of the cherry. Making her debut in season 7 of The Walking Dead as the leader of the Scavengers, a group who reside in a junkyard, Jadis sways from being an antagonist to an ally and back again to Rick and his people in Alexandria as they face off against Negan. In season 8, Jadis continues to double-cross both Rick and Negan, but by the end of the season, has become accepted as one of the Alexandrians and goes by the name of Anne. Her appearance in a fateful season 9 finds her being part of a human trafficking project that is being led by a mystery helicopter. The season saw the departure of Rick Grimes onboard said helicopter after he is rescued by Anne after being caught in an explosion. The character made a subsequent appearance as a main character spin-off series The Walking Dead: World Beyond, in which she was completely loyal to the CRM.

Now Jadis is back again, which is probably not surprising considering The Ones Who Live will catch up with Rick following the events of his departure back in season 9 of the main show. Along with the new image, EW also spoke to McIntosh about her return as the character. She explained:

“There will be some of the Jadis that you will recognize from World Beyond. She is in the position of Warrant Officer Jadis Stokes. She is still working with the Civic Republic and the Civic Republic Military. So she’s a committed follower of the CRM, but people are not just their jobs, and the old Jadis that we got to know and who has tried her best but has lost many times is a big driving undercurrent of where she’s coming from.”

Jadis Was Always Part of the Plan For Rick’s Return

The Walking Dead has never quite let go of any character that remains alive in the universe, and in the same way characters like Morgan have crossed from one series into another, Jadis is another who was always set to follow Rick into his spin-off story – whatever that turned out to be. Of course, the original Rick Grimes spin-off was expected to be a trilogy of movies, but over time was reworked as the limited series that will premiere February 25 on AMC and AMC+.

In the same interview, McIntosh explained that she never saw Rick’s story continuing without the return of Jadis. She said:

“It was always going to be Rick’s story with Jadis and Michonne. Certainly, I knew it would be Jadis and Rick. And then of course I figured you’ve got to have Michonne in there. And because that hadn’t happened in World Beyond, I knew that we’d still have this coming. So it was always that,” McIntosh said. “But it was a beautiful call from Scott in lockdown saying, ‘We’re doing that thing, but can you also do this other thing and come to World Beyond?’ So it wasn’t a question for me when we wrapped World Beyond as to whether we’d be doing The Ones Who Live or not. It was always going to be the plan, because we want to see Rick, right? The question I get asked the most in my life for the last four and a half years is, ‘What have you done with Rick?'”