Walking Dead Spin-Off’s Tone To Be Different, Says Robert Kirkman

The dead keep on coming. AMC’s Walking Dead is a huge success that is now seeing a spin-off into new territory that the comic for which it is based upon has not dived into. Filming is slated to begin shortly on The Walking Dead companion series. Recently, series creator and executive producer Robert Kirkman spoke with EW and promised that the upcoming spin-off series will be quite different from the main show.

“I will say that this is going to be a show about family. But it’s going to be a show about a different type of family that we haven’t explored in The Walking Dead thus far. So what we’re trying to do with The Walking Dead spinoff is keep the story as familiar as possible for people that love The Walking Dead, so you’ll get the kind of things that you expect from a Walking Dead story.

But, at the same time, we’ll want to tell these stories in a completely different way with completely different people in a completely different setting that’s going to make for a fundamentally different show. I think the look and feel of The Walking Dead spinoff is going to be startlingly different.”

Kirkman also addressed the Los Angeles setting, which will provide an interesting contrast to the Atlanta location of the primary series.

“It’s Los Angeles. It’s a corner of the world that we have never explored in the comic book series. So, theoretically, something like this could be happening in Los Angeles in the comic book series, but we don’t show you this area of the country in the comic book series. So it fits within that world, but it is all new characters, all new events and all kinds of crazy stuff.”

Kirkman did not speak on the reports that the series will potentially take place at a different point in time, specifically around the early days of the outbreak.

Co-created by Kirkman and Dave Erickson, the series will take place in the same zombie apocalypse depicted in The Walking Dead albeit in a different location and potentially at a different point in time. Erickson will serve as the showrunner for the new series, which will be executive produced by Kirkman, Gale Anne Hurd and David Alpert. Adam Davidson will direct the pilot episode which sees Cliff Curtis will lead the companion series alongside Kim Dickens. They’re joined by Frank Dillane and Alycia Debnam-Carey.

In related news, the new teaser has been revealed for the second half of The Walking Dead‘s fifth season (seen below). The Walking Dead returns to AMC on February 8th at 9 p.m. ET.

Also, Hollywood Reporter said that Ross Marquand will join the zombie drama based on Robert Kirkman’s long-running comics as a series regular. Marquand’s character will be introduced in the second half of the show’s fifth season and will be a series regular — with the likelihood to serve in the same capacity in the already announced sixth season.

The site speculated that the character to be introduced will be Aaron, as the series could explore the Alexandria storyline next now that the group is reunited and back on the road looking for a new home. Aaron is a resident of the Alexandria Safe-Zone, which is the longest-running location that the comics has yet to feature.

Walking Dead Spin-Off’s Tone To Be Different, Says Robert Kirkman