The Walking Dead Spinoff Series Gets Pilot Order From AMC

The zombie empire that Robert Kirkman began in The Walking Dead comics is about to grow even larger on TV.

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AMC announced today that it is ordering a pilot for a companion series to The Walking Dead. which will have Kirkman and producers Gale Anne Hurd and Dave Alpert attached while Dave Erickson takes on executive producer and showrunner duties. The pilot will go into production later this year, meaning it could be heading to TV at the same time the main series rolls out its sixth season.

For longtime fans of the franchise, the companion show sounds like it will provide glimpses into things the comics have never really covered, most notably how the zombie apocalypse is affecting other parts of the world. Could it actually address something that both the main show and its source material have never touched on and explore what started turning the dead into the undead in the first place?

It’s not completely out of the question, nor is the idea that the companion show could run on past whatever endpoint Kirkman and company have planned for Rick Grimes and his band of survivors. The Walking Dead seemed like a longshot to turn into an NCIS-esque franchise that generates spinoffs when it first launched, but with an audience as big as it commands now, it only makes sense.

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(via The Hollywood Reporter)