Posted in: Movies, TV | Tagged: amc, entertainment, fear the walking dead, spinoff, The Walking Dead

'Fear The Walking Dead' – Bleeding Cool Reads AMC's The Walking Dead Spinoff Script (UPDATE)

UPDATE: David K. Caplan of Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton LLP gets in touch to say:

Notwithstanding this, it has come to our attention that unauthorized excerpts from the unreleased Pilot script, as well as unreleased plot elements from the Pilot, are being distributed without authorization via your website at the following URL:

Rainbow Media has the good faith belief that the use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by Rainbow Media, its agent or the law. Rainbow Media diligently enforces its rights in and to the Pilot in all forms of media and rightfully takes its responsibility for the protection of the Pilot seriously.

We have chosen to remove the small script excerpts, though they can still be seen at other sites including Vanity Fair, SpoilerTV, Flickering Myth and Screen Gonzo. While The International Business Times has got a comment that "Fear The Walking Dead" is just the name of the pilot, not the name of the show. The letter does however confirm the legitimacy of the script.

The original story continues below, without excerpts:

It looks like The Walking Dead spinoff series for AMC is called Fear The Walking Dead.

Or at least that's the pilot episode's name, in this September 2014 script. You be the judge.

[REMOVED – image with the title of the script – or series – "Fear The Walking Dead"]

Things may change.

Written by Walking Dead co-creator Robert Kirkman and Low Winter Sun's writer/producer Dave Erickson, if you want to know nothing about this AMC show stop right no. You have no need to read further.

The Walking Dead, both in comics and in TV, jumped forward. When Rick Grimes woke in the hospital, the zombie infection had happened, society, civilisation had collapsed, the survivors were trying to deal with the aftermath, pick up the pieces and survive – with the realisation that their imminent death was just around the corner. They had become the walking dead of the title.

[REMOVED – Ian using his "could woulda shoulda" catchphrase]

This is not that show, at least not in the pilot script. The intro gives you a swerve, but the infection has not taken hold yet. The "walkers" are not yet known to the population at large, as society stands on the cusp of its own destruction.

[REMOVED – Ian sees a friend eating a friend – and using the F-word]

And we meet a rather disfunctional family – an older one than Rick's, here are a mother and a soon-to-be-stepfather, teachers Madison and Travis, and their older teenage children, Alicia and Ian, Travis' ex Liza and their teenage son Christopher, in a family about to break apart. Drugs, illness, self-harm, set in Los Angeles, this is not so much a nuclear family as a dirty bomb. Rick's family were torn apart, this family are there from the beginning.

[REMOVED – the CDC Virologist dispelling the rumours that the infected are dead and do not walk among us. Even though we know they do. Silly CDC virologist.]

Because the dead are coming, An urban legend, underground, being spread from person to person. It plays the fact tat we, the audience, know far more about what's going on than anything else does and keeps teasing us toward the inevitable, in much the same way that Gotham does, but in the knowledge that it's going to be over far sooner.

[REMOVED – People using iPads to watch the chaos. The last iPads they will ever use. They never even got iPad 2s. I'm surprised they managed to hold them up.]

These people all have plans, some in LA, some out, and we all know they are never going to pursue their dreams. This is not The Walking Dead, it's somewhere else entirely.

Apocalypse Now-ish.

Also note, a little more profane than before… will AMC bleep?

Enjoyed this? Please share on social media!

Stay up-to-date and support the site by following Bleeding Cool on Google News today!