With "Mad Men" finished, AMC needs another hit. "Fear The Walking Dead," the spinoff of television's most watched cable drama, is premiering this summer and may be exactly what the network needs.
There is not a lot of information known on what "Fear The Walking Dead" is going to be like, nor is there even an exact release date. It has been described as a companion of sorts to "The Walking Dead" that will highlight pre-outbreak life but not get into why the outbreak occurred.
In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter earlier this week, "Fear The Walking Dead' showrunner Dave Erickson opened up to finally give fans some hints on what to expect, including if characters from "The Walking Dead" will be on the spinoff and that the show will most like run "about five or six seasons." .
"I think logistically, it would be very difficult," Erickson said about main series characters appearing. "There's no plan for a crossover. I never considered seeing that in some way, shape or form; that show has been going on for five years since the original outbreak and we're just in the infancy [of the outbreak]. There are no plans to do so but I do think that's a world that could be explored at some point.
"We are telling, ultimately, two parts of the larger story in this world that Robert (Kirkman) has created. From a storytelling standpoint, I like the idea of conflating stories; I like the idea of things coming together."
As far as the setting goes, it's already known, since the short trailer was released for season one, that Los Angeles is where we will get the first glimpse of an outbreak. However, Erickson gave even more insight as to how the time period aligns with the early days of "The Walking Dead."
"The goal was to loosely track the period of those four or five weeks that Rick Grimes was in his coma," he said. "When he wakes up and goes outside, it's done; the world has come to an end. We're not going to time out exactly to that point. We have a story device that will still keep our characters - our core family - somewhat ignorant of what's going on beyond.
"I wouldn't say that we end the season at the exact same point where Rick wakes up, but it'll loosely be in that time frame. Things will have gone very bad by the end of season one."
Los Angeles was chosen as the site of the first season of the new show because, according to Erickson, its where people go to rebuild. The main characters from "Fear The Walking Dead" "have gone through some very unsavory thing," Erickson said.
No character is ever safe in "The Walking Dead"- its a staple of the series. Erickson believes that will continue on the spinoff.
"Anybody can be eaten at any time; it can happen to anyone. No one is safe, but I also have some specific arcs in my head that will probably protect certain people."
