According to a newly emerged rumor, the upcoming The Walking Dead cinematic spin-off, which will focus solely on Rick Grimes, is looking to brandish a "hard" R rating. News of a solo movie series focused on Rick Grimes has been circulating for some time, with the movie supposedly being rated R tracking with everything that has recently been teased about the continuing adventures of the reluctant leader.

Screenwriter Scott Gimple recently teased a few details regarding the tone of the project, comparing it to Hugh Jackman's Wolverine swansong Logan. "You didn't have to watch every X-Men movie to enjoy that," Gimple said. "Rick has a history and the history will be present within him and it'll be a big part of who he is, but it's likely going to be a very different Rick that we see as well. New audiences will be like, 'Oh, that's the guy. I want to discover that past history.' We who know it so well, it's like, 'Oh crap, that's the thing that's weighing on him from the past.' You gotta invite both those people, which we try to do with the shows."

Released in 2017, Logan picks up with the legendary member of the X-Men years after the events of the rest of movie series and finds the fan-favorite mutant forced into a self-imposed retirement before once again summoning his inner hero in order to escort a young mutant named Laura to safety. Logan is starkly different in tone to the other X-Men movies, and not only features the kind of foul language that would have parents covering their child's ears, but is also brutally violent, adding weight to the idea of Rick Grimes' solo adventures being R-rated.

The Walking Dead movie is reportedly being plotted as the beginning of a trilogy that will "honor people who have invested the time in their lives and the show, but we can't do that at the expense of inviting everybody," Gimple said previously, explaining his approach to the project.

A movie revolving around Rick Grimes was announced by chief content officer and former showrunner Scott Gimple immediately following Andrew Lincoln's surprise exit from the AMC television series all the way back in November 2018. The as-yet-untitled feature will follow Grimes and Anne (Pollyanna McIntosh), formerly Jadis of the survival group The Scavengers, and will reportedly reveal what happened to the pair after the events of the season 9, episode 5 episode "What Comes After", in which Rick and Anne were shuttled away aboard a Civic Republic Military helicopter and taken to a new corner of the post-apocalyptic world.

The teaser trailer that was released during San Diego Comic-Con in July 2019 hinted that Rick and Anne will be transported to Philadelphia, a so-far unexplored corner of The Walking Dead universe. Though not too much else is currently known about the direction of the movie, producer Scott Gimple provided some details earlier this year suggesting it will be even bigger than the series. "We are going to continue to tell Rick's story, and we are going to discover so much of the world through that story," Gimple said back in January.

The Walking Dead director Rosemary Rodriguez recently fueled speculation that, not only will the Rick Grimes movie be released sometime this year, but that it will also hit the big screen. This comes to us courtesy of Known scooper Daniel Richtman.