Seriously, how? They’ve been trying to kill of superheroes for years (Watchmen, the Boys) but nothing seems to stick.
Genres die when it becomes impossible to create original work within it but rather only metacommentary on the genre itself.
Take the Noir genre. You can write a neo-Noir (like Brick) or a self-conscious imitation (Chinatown, Mank) or a parody but what you cannot do is make a straight ahead Noir.
a genre does not die when it has been well satirized or thoroughly deconstructed
a genre dies when those who control the medium believe that genre will not make enough money anymore
A scathing work of satire that manages to get insanely popular and become a cultural phenomenon.
That was Don Quixote which killed chivalric romances, and that was Blazing Saddles which killed whitewashed TV Westerns.
Like superheroes, IMO zombies aren’t a genre, they’re an element — they exist within a genre (often action, horror, or thriller especially) but aren’t one unto themselves.
I think the Walking Dead having a good first season or two that a lot of people watched and then quickly becoming unwatchable garbage wore people out on them.
