AMC renews 'The Walking Dead' for Season 8

NEW YORK, Oct. 16 (UPI) -- AMC says it has renewed its wildly popular, zombie-apocalypse drama The Walking Dead for an eighth season.

"Eeny, meeny, miny, more," Charlie Collier, president of AMC, SundanceTV and AMC Studios, said in a statement. "What a joy to partner with Robert Kirkman, Scott M. Gimple and some of the hardest-working people in television to bring The Walking Dead to the fans. And, most important, thanks to those fans for breathing life into this remarkable series right along with us."

The cable network Sunday aired a 2-hour re-cap special in the run-up to next weekend's highly anticipated Season 7 premiere in which at least one longtime character is expected to be killed.

The program included fresh interviews with current cast members Andrew Lincoln, Norman Reedus, Melissa McBride, Chandler Riggs and Steven Yeun, as well as their past co-stars -- whose characters have died -- such as Laurie Holden, David Morrissey, Jeffrey DeMunn and Scott Wilson.

AMC is re-running all episodes of the six, previous seasons this week. The marathon started Sunday.

Killer news! #TWD is returning for Season 8 in 2017. https://t.co/zxh06yqF5q pic.twitter.com/MU2CBOQdvi

— The Walking Dead AMC (@WalkingDead_AMC) October 17, 2016