Good news for "The Walking Dead" fans. Producer David Alpert hinted that the AMC show could last for a very, very long time. Alpert was speaking at a Producers Guild event and indicated that producers already have the show mapped out through to Season 12, Screen Rant reports.

Currently the cast and crew are in Atlanta filming Season 5, which airs in the fall. According to Screen Rant, Alpert was asked how he likes working with "pre-existing" material (aka Robert Kirkman's comic books).

"I happen to love working form source material, specifically because we have a pretty good idea of what season 10 is gonna be. We know where season 11 and 12... we have benchmarks and milestones for those seasons if we're lucky enough to get there," he said.

It seems like Alpert's views on the duration of the zombie apocalyptic may differ from Kirman's. Last month, Kirkman said he wasn't sure if the show would make it past Season 7. According to Comicbook.com, in a letter column for Issue #167 of The Walking Dead comics, Kirkman was told by a fan not to milk the show and to end by Season 7 or 8.  

"Just because something goes a long time doesn't mean it's being milked," Kirkman responded. "We'll be lucky to make it to Season 7, but If we go beyond that it'll be because we have a story to tell."

"We certainly won't be able to tell the full story of the comics in seven seasons of the show," he added.

Showrunner Scott Gimple also talked about the duration of the show and said that he thinks it could last several years.

"As a comic book, I don't know if it will end. As a TV show, all TV shows end," he told Larry King. "But I will say, I think it's possible that it could go on and on and on and on. I think if it went ten years... if it went longer than that it's possible that the cast, considering the amount of deaths on this cast and everything else, after ten or twelve years, it could shift into a whole new cast."

Do you think "The Walking Dead" should last to Season 12?