Black Panther’s Danai Gurira set to leave “The Walking Dead”

Feb 8, 2019

Before she was General Okoye, the leader Wankanda’s badass all-woman Army in Black Panther, Danai Gurira was Michonne on the hit series The Walking Dead.

Unfortunately, for fans of the latter, Gurira is about to become the latest fan favorite to exit The Walking Dead. Gurira has signed a new deal, according to The Hollywood Reporter, to appear in a handful of episodes in the upcoming season, the show’s 10th, and it will be her last.

Gurira joins cast members Andrew Lincoln, Lauren Cohan, Lennie James, and Austin Amelio who have all departed the series in recent years. Her loss will be a big blow to the show’s creative plans.

—‘Black Panther’ returns to the theater for a week of free Black History month screenings—

“She has been very vocal about saying that she loves the show,” AMC programming president David Madden told The Hollywood Reporter in November. “We love Danai; we love that character. Right now, she’s got a lot of opportunities and she needs to weigh what she feels is best for her. But we certainly would want her on the show as long as she wants to be on it,”.

“We really want her to stay. She is an incredibly valuable character and I’m really hoping she stays,” he added. “The goal is to have Danai continue on whatever basis she can make work, given the other things that she has going on in her life.”

Along with TWD and Black Panther, Gurira is a celebrated playwright who has written and starred in the off-Broadway production In the Continuum and made her Broadway debut in 2009. In 2016, her future Black Panther co-star starred in Eclipsed, a play that starred her future Black Panther castmate Lupita Nyong’o, earned Gurira a Tony nomination for best play.

—WATCH: Get to know Danai Gurira on ‘Breaking Big’—

Gurira will reprise her role as Okoye in the upcoming Marvel film Avengers: Endgame. Black Panther is currently nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Picture.