‘The Walking Dead’ Spin-Off Will Take Place In A ‘Standalone World’

Fans of The Walking Dead shouldn’t expect to see their favorite characters pop up in the spin-off that’s headed to AMC in the near future.

Rumors about the new show started floating around the internet shortly after the project came to light. Although the story will reportedly take place during the same zombie apocalypse, executive producer Greg Nicotero told Channel Guide Magazine that the series won’t feature any characters from The Walking Dead.

“We’re sort of treating the spin-off as a completely separate entity. That was something that was very, very important when the notion of a companion series was even brought up,” Nicotero explained.

He added, “The actors and the executive producers wanted to make sure that anything we did, we didn’t want it to diminish our story, our storyline, our characters and the momentum that we have. So the intent is that it is going to be its own standalone world.”

Is Greg Nicotero just tossing around random ideas about The Walking Dead spin-off? Not exactly. The executive producer said he knows precisely what producers and writers presently have in store for fans, though he isn’t quite ready to share any of those juicy details with the world at this moment in time.

The Walking Dead mastermind Robert Kirkman told IGN that the spin-off series would likely chronicle how the zombie apocalypse came about. Since the show would serve as a prequel, fans should expect an entirely new batch of characters to drive the story.

“Yeah, 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,” he said.

Kirkman continued, “The spin-off has to be a show worthy of existing, or else we’ve all sold out… 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.”

Unfortunately, it’s unclear when the spin-off will find its way onto the small screen. If producers are serious about getting this thing up and running, then we could see something pop up next year. However, that’s pure speculation on our part.

While you’re waiting for the spin-off to shamble across AMC, fans of The Walking Dead can catch a new episode of the acclaimed series on February 9.