"Watching Gimple fire my son 2 weeks before his 18th birthday after telling him they wanted him for the next 3 years was disappointing," William Riggs wrote in the post, which was later deleted. Because of that, lots of people have been claiming that Chandler Riggs was fired because turning 18 meant a pay rise, one that AMC didn't want to give. Too many people repeat this as a fact, despite their being no evidence to back that up.
From the same article:
According to Riggs' more detailed account, Chandler Riggs was offered a two-year contract renewal on The Walking Dead with an additional one-year option in April of 2017, which he describes as "typical."
2017 was the year season 8 was being filmed, so assuming Chandler took that new deal, he was already getting paid more. If you keep reading that article, Chandler had a one-on-one meeting with Scott Gimple where he was told his character was being killed off.
The Hollywood Reporter, 5 November 2018
Sources say Reedus — who also hosts and exec produces AMC's unscripted motorcycle series Ride With Norman Reedus — will make $350,000 per episode on top of additional guarantees and advances in a deal that sources say could be worth anywhere from $50 million to $90 million. McBride's deal, which is said to include a sizeable pay bump, will see the actress score an estimated $20 million over three years.
I'd wager that Norman and Melissa were already making more than Chandler on their previous contracts, so AMC could clearly afford to give the two of them a significant bump. On top of adding Samantha Morton and Ryan Hurst to the cast that year, it seems there was plenty of money to go around.
Paul Tassi at Forbes, 17 November 2018 Bolding by me.
The conspiracy theorists would say that Chandler Riggs was fired because he was about to negotiate a new contract once he turned 18 that would have cost AMC tens of millions. Replacing him with a new, unknown child actress as Judith is a cost-saving measure. And yet with the astonishing amount of money AMC continues to throw at the rest of the cast and production of TWD shows and now movies, I genuinely don’t think it was a financial decision. It was a creative one.
That last line is all you need. Ask yourself what makes more sense; Chandler Riggs costing so much money that AMC demands he be let go, or Scott Gimple having a big-brain moment of pure genius to kill Carl in order to push Rick's story? For as hated as he is, Gimple seems to not receive as much blame as he should for deciding to kill Carl.
If you have ANY evidence to the contrary, I'd love to see it.
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