Thanks to a leaked script that was obtained by Bleeding Cool, we now know a lot of details about the upcoming Walking Dead spinoff airing on AMC later this year. From previous reports we already knew where the show will take place, and now we know when.
If the leaked script of the Pilot – all traces of which have since been removed from Bleeding Cool by the request of Rainbow Media – is to believed, this spinoff will take place much closer to the origin of the walker breakout. The Pilot’s title will apparently be “Fear The Walking Dead” and a lot of the characters in the Pilot is seemingly unaware of any walker outbreak.
While we did see a short glimpse of pre-outbreak Rick Grimes in the main Walking Dead’s Pilot episode, the large majority of the series has been based months and now years on from the initial outbreak. This has given The Walking Dead a logical way to avoid the question of how the outbreak started, as there is seemingly no one left alive to properly investigate it. So in turn, the main group is free to float around and have a story focused on the characters instead of the walkers itself. But it appears this may change with the upcoming spin-off.
Bleeding Cool makes the apt comparison to Fox’s Gotham, which places its characters into a world where we the viewer know what the future holds, but they do not. Similar to how all of Batman’s future villains are unaware of whats to come for them, the every day citizens of this Walking Dead spin-off appear to be have no idea about the impending outbreak.
Leaked excerpts from the script have characters nonchalantly going about their lives, being total a-holes and recording video on their iPads, and even a CDC Virologist denying the idea that there are actually such things as infected dead walking around and eating people. While we, being the Walking Dead future see’ers that we are, know full well that is the case, everyone in this pre-outbreak world does not.
There also appears to be a section of the script detailing an early walker attack with a confused group of characters gathered around an iPad to watch (courtesy of Screen Gonzo):
They circle an iPad. Footage from last night’s ‘accident’–
View from the NEWS HELICOPTER hovering over the scene. LAPD Cruiser and AMBULANCE below, LIGHTS PULSING. PARAMEDICS working an OVERTURNED CAR.
Costa
This is unreal, UN-real.
The footage is wide and high and fragmented. PARAMEDICS lay a SPINE-BOARD next to the car, driver’s side door ajar. They reach in, cut the seat belt to remove the crash VICTIM–
Costa (CONT’D)
…now watch this, watch it…
–as the Paramedics lean in, the Victim lunges. We can’t see the BITE or hear the SCREAMS–
Up until this point, most all of what we’ve seen of The Walking Dead world pre-outbreak has been relegated to a few web-exclusive mini-series. While they aren’t the greatest productions in the world, they do a good job showing just how an outbreak like this could occur, and why your first instinct might not be to kill on sight when your neighbor shambles towards you. It will definitely be interesting to see a full series with a dedicated higher budget tackling the same issue, and just how far it can go before it becomes the same show as the main series.
Last Updated on January 12, 2019.
