Status Update on The Walking Dead Spinoff Series

2014/01/14 21:06:19 +00:00 | Jonathan James

Back in September, AMC announced that they were in the initial stages of developing a companion series to The Walking Dead. Since then, fans have been anxiously awaiting new details, but even AMC and Robert Kirkman don't have all the answers yet. Here's a round up of some recent quotes to let you know all that we know at this time:

Most recently, Vulture spoke with AMC network chief Charlie Collier and programming head Joel Stillerman, who revealed that they are much earlier in the development process than most people thought:

"That show is not as far along [as Better Call Saul]. Robert has some things on his plate. He continues to write every issue of the comic and hasn’t finished season four of The Walking Dead, which he is very intimately involved with and will continue to be. That’s really in the incubation stages. The one thing that I’ll share is just an anecdote that Robert shared with us. He has such a specific vision that he laid out really clearly in the first issue of the comic book. And I encourage anybody who’s interested in the show to go read the note that he wrote in the first issue of the comic. His motivation for telling that story was so clear and so powerful, and it served as such a great north star for the show. We kicked around a few ideas, but primarily what he’s working on is, what is the idea that gives [him] as clear a mandate to make another version of this show as [he] had for the first one? What is going on [now] is a more philosophical discussion over why there should be another version of the show. Once we answer that, we’ll zero in on the specific creative."

Late last year, Robert Kirkman confirmed to IGN that it would take place in a different part of The Walking Dead world and talked about what he's trying to build:

"...It’s going to be set in this world, but it is a new cast and a new setting, and it’s going to be very different. It’s just exciting to be able to start over again and try to do cool stuff...

... it’s a really different location with completely different people, so we are going to see an entirely different corner of the Walking Dead world. It definitely won’t be set in Georgia, I can at least say that. It’s important to us that this show exists on its own. The spinoff has to be a show worthy of existing, or else we’ve all sold out. So that’s something we’re all working hard towards doing, and I think we can pull it off. I think that the ideal situation is, when you’re watching the spinoff, you’re like, “Wow, this is a really awesome show.” The whole other show doesn’t need to exist for this show to be cool and stand on its own."

One of the big items that fans have been speculating about is whether or not cast members from the current show would appear in the spinoff. At this time, Robert Kirkman wouldn't confirm or rule it out:

"...that’s something we can’t really get into. It’s a little too early to be discussing those kinds of things."

The only items that have been officially confirmed by AMC are that they are targeting a 2015 air date and that Robert Kirkman, Gale Anne Hurd and David Alpert are on board as executive producers, with AMC Studios set to produce.

Of course, we'll keep readers posted on major development and you can catch up on our coverage highlights by visiting the following links: