If the ‘Fear the Walking Dead’ official trailer wasn’t full of enough new details for the series, we’ve got the highlights of yesterday’s SDCC 2015 panel to share with you today! With some fans wondering how expanding ‘The Walking Dead’ with a spin-off series will lure in viewers, this panel had a few answers just for you. Honestly as the highest rated show on cable television right now, I don’t think many of us will have to wonder how they plan on pulling in people to watch it.

However, to help get the crowd excited though Executive Producer Greg Nicotero, Gale Anne Hurd, and show-runner Dave Erickson brought a lot of details to whet your whistles and I have to say if I hadn’t already been excited I would be now.

To start with the panel was moderated by, no surprise here, Chris Hardwick. He jokingly gets the crowd quiet and says that LA will fall first when the zombies arrive to due to its dense population. Teasingly he mentioned that we’ll probably also see him end up moderating a ‘Fear the Talking Dead’ show at this rate.

Jokingly he pointed out that Hall H at Comic-Con where all of the big events happened at would be taken out in about 7 minutes.

Shortly after he introduces the cast of Travis Manawa as Cliff Curtis, Kim Dickens as Madison Bennett, Frank Dillane as Nick Bennett, Alycia Debnam-Carey as Alicia Bennett, Elizabeth Rodriguez as Liza, Lorenzo James Henrie as Chris, and Ruben Blades as Daniel.

Kirkman’s dream for a companion series has always been an opposite to rural Georgia so LA makes sense. The only other options would probably have been Chicago or New York to really give a different feel for the show.

While the series is clearly in the same universe as ‘The Walking Dead’ it was stressed that ‘Fear the Walking Dead’ won’t feel like a rip-off of the original. Especially when we begin with people thinking that the infected are sick and not undead with no hope of being saved.

A fun part is none of the survivors that we’re following have already had to live in this world. We are starting with people who have no real survival skills to start out with and have to either come into their own or they just won’t make it. While Rick may have fallen into that category in ‘The Walking Dead’ he had been a trained police officer so would almost automatically be in a better position than many out there.

If the apocalypse did happen most of the panelists did admit that death was imminent. The only survivors would be Greg who would give himself a zombified makeover so he could pass as one of the undead and Gale Anne Hurd who apparently has enough food to survive for three years in her house!

Don’t want to read just the highlights and would prefer to see the whole thing? Well we can’t send you back in time or to SDCC to experience it first hand but the next best thing is probably to watch the full panel below!


(Video courtesy of moviemaniacsDE)

Are you looking forward to the premiere of ‘Fear the Walking Dead’? Do you think AMC needed to make a ‘The Walking Dead’ spin off series? Share your thoughts below!

‘Fear the Walking Dead’ premieres Sunday, August 23 on AMC at 9/8c

Source: Collider