The Walking Dead's Scrapped Carl Grimes Spin-Off Detailed By Actor Chandler Riggs

If "Walking Dead" alum Chandler Riggs had his way, we would've spent a little more time with Carl Grimes. The 27-year-old actor recently revealed that he pitched an idea for a "Walking Dead" spin-off that would've further fleshed out a major missing piece of Carl's emotional arc.

For eight seasons, Riggs played the son of Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) on AMC's hit horror drama "The Walking Dead." Introduced as a young boy forced to grow up in a zombie apocalypse, Carl evolved into a hardened survivor, but the character's journey came to a shocking end during the Season 8 episode titled "Honor," when Carl shoots himself off-screen to avoid turning after sustaining a fatal walker bite to the torso.

During an interview with Screen Rant, Riggs shared that he pitched the franchise head honcho Scott Gimple an idea that would've explored Carl's transition into a peaceful pacifist. "There was a point in time where we had talked about a potential for Carl coming back, and not in a hallucination or flashback, but a story for him," Riggs told the outlet. "I actually had written out this thing and sent it to Scott [Gimple] of there's a gap between Season 7 and 8, where he's — not bloodthirsty, but ready to kill, ready to do what it takes to take out [others] ... And then to go from that to pure pacifist, to like, 'No, we're not killing any more people.'"

Riggs believed that the missing time capsule would've filled in the blanks and provided fans with details on why Carl altered his mindset. "I think there's an opportunity there for us to explore what he experienced during that month of time to send him down this path," he added. "What did he see? What did he witness or experience to send him down this path of, 'Okay, no, we're gonna figure out a way for all of us to live together.'"

Carl's early demise remains one of the show's biggest deviations from Robert Kirkman's comic books, where the character actually makes it to the finish line. So finding out about Carl's fate "was definitely quite the surprise for me — and for everyone, I think — but ultimately, it's for the best for my career and the story," Riggs told TVLine.

When Riggs first landed the role of Carl, he was only 10 years old, so as you can imagine, filming his final scenes brought plenty of mixed emotions. "It was kind of awkward, just because everybody knew what was coming," he recalled. "It was the elephant in the room, and nobody really wanted to talk to me about it." Still, he viewed his exit through a positive lens, calling the experience "bittersweet."

Since moving on from "The Walking Dead," Riggs went on to book a recurring role as PJ Nelson on ABC's "A Million Little Things." He's also appeared in feature films like "Inherit the Viper" and he voiced Superman in the animated movie "Justice League x RWBY: Super Heroes & Huntsmen."