Andrew Lincoln to Leave The Walking Dead After Ninth Season

Lincoln, who portrays former sheriff turned survivor Rick Grimes, is expected to appear in only a handful of episodes during The Walking Dead season 9 before exiting the popular AMC series.

Nearly unbelievable on a show where nearly no one is said to be safe, the man who has played Rick Grimes since the very beginning of the series based on Robert Kirkman's comics could be gone by the end of the upcoming ninth season, I hear.

With Lincoln now set to exit the series, questions about the future of The Walking Dead will undoubtedly begin surfacing as season 9 draws closer to debuting later this year.

Additionally, Lincoln's on-screen son, Chandler Rigg's Carl, was killed off the show late a year ago. His leaving the show doesn't necessarily mean that Rick will be dying, but it's the most likely exit strategy given that every other departure from the show has been through death on screen.

The move comes as The Walking Dead continues to be one of AMC's highest-rated television dramas - despite declining ratings and quality. Comicbook.com collaborates the story "from multiple independent sources", and additionally states that AMC will officially announce Lincoln's departure ahead of his final episodes.

Lincoln, Reedus, Lauren Cohan, and Danai Gurira are all set to return for series nine, which is now in production. So with the original leads pretty much completely departed, you know the focus would have to change substantially, and the leading man the network was supposedly looking to was Norman Reedus.

Lauren Cohan recently signed with ABC for the new Whiskey Cavalier TV series.

Collider says Lincoln could leave as early as six episodes into the new season.

The Walking Dead & Fear The Walking Dead's hottest babes in pictures.

Fans were stunned at the news that Lincoln would be leaving the show and bringing Rick Grimes' story to an end.

To make up for the loss of Rick, it's thought that AMC has offered big money to Norman Reedus to stay and make Daryl Dixon the lead.