The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon: Is the Daryl Dixon spinoff really filmed in France?

The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon sent our intrepid hero across the ocean to France! But is this new spin-off really filmed in that country or someplace else? Find out here!

Caution: This article contains SPOILERS for the premiere of The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon. 

The premiere of the new spin-off showed Norman Reedus’ character drifting in a lifeboat that washed up on the coast of France. Daryl was soon heading into the country, getting a look at how Europe handled the zombie uprising.

Daryl soon ran afoul of soldiers, a couple who betrayed him and about to become Walker food when Isabelle, a nun, saved him. She brought him to a convent, where Daryl brushed off questions of how he got there with “I made some bad decisions.”

At the end of the episode, a woman called Madame Genet was told that Daryl had escaped a ship after causing havoc. Genet is conducting experiments on Walkers and humans and wants Daryl found, while the brother of a soldier killed also wants revenge.

So Daryl is already in a mess in France, but was the show actually filmed there?

Where was the Daryl Dixon spin-off filmed?

It would be easy to assume that, for budget reasons alone, the new series was filmed in some place like Canada and CGI used to create the illusion of France. But as it turns out, the show really was filmed in the country.

Most of it was filmed in Paris, with Reedus noting how they filmed in the Louvre and the famed Catacombs under the city (which no doubt will have a scary encounter with Walkers). The Abbaye de Montmajour at Rte de Fontvieille in Arles is used for the convent where Isabelle and her allies gather. Several prominent scenes for the show are recorded on Pont du Gard Aqueduct, an ancient Roman bridge. Several spots in Normandy were used for Daryl’s early entry into France.

Speaking to CBR.com, production designer Clovis Weil explained how the show wanted to use real locations instead of soundstages.

"“Part of the point for The Walking Dead to come to France was to use France as a set. We had some really great studio stages and a few sets that we totally built. But the interest was to have kind of a road movie — a Daryl Dixon road movie [starting at] the south of France, to have many key locations that are very iconic and very representative of France, and to have this apocalyptic feeling. That was part of the demands of the studio. They wanted to see France. We needed strong locations from [the] south of France to [the] north of France.”"

So when fans tune in and see Daryl about the French countryside, know it’s the real deal to make this dark road trip even better.

The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon airs Sundays on AMC.