‘Fear The Walking Dead’ Spoilers: Series Is Inspired By True Stories, According To Greg Nicotero

Fear the Walking Dead still doesn’t have an official premiere date yet, but rest assured that a cure for those walker withdrawals is coming sometime this summer.

Melty recently interviewed Fear the Walking Dead executive producer Greg Nicotero about The Walking Dead companion series set in Los Angeles during the early days of the zombie virus outbreak. Nicotero hinted that the upcoming series might have a few “ripped from the headlines” moments, and he chatted about how it differs from its parent show.

According to Nicotero, Fear the Walking Dead won’t focus on the origin of the outbreak because “it’s not necessarily important.” However, while fans won’t get to meet “patient zero,” they will get to see how society reacts to the first news stories about people eating other people. Nicotero explained how the beginning of Fear the Walking Dead was partially inspired by the infamous bath salts zombie attack story that captivated the country in 2012.

“What’s important in the spin-off is how people react to it. It really is a fascinating statement on current society, because we get most of our information from our iPads and our phones. There have been things that have been happening in recent years… When you hear stories like that, about a guy who attacked someone and bit their face off, imagine how we reacted to that news story at the time.”

Fear the Walking Dead viewers might also get to see how some citizens’ grave mistakes help the virus spread. He mentioned the recent Ebola cases in America and the Maine nurse who refused to self-quarantine after treating Ebola patients in West Africa.

“Even in the U.S., there was a nurse who was working in Africa and who came back to the United States and refused to go into quarantine for Ebola. So I think about stories like that and I go: ‘Wow, maybe that could have been the beginning, or maybe this could have been the beginning.’ In a TV show like Fear the Walking Dead, you get to ask those same questions.”

According to Mashable, Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman has actually concocted a virus origin story. However, he’s not very interested in telling it.

“I know the story, but I’ve never bothered to write it down,” Kirkman said. “Let’s hope I don’t die.”

During his Melty interview, Greg Nicotero revealed one of the biggest differences between The Walking Dead and its companion series — The Walking Dead featured multiple families that were torn apart (sometimes literally) by the zombie virus, but Fear the Walking Dead will focus on fractured families that are brought closer together by the outbreak.

“In our version of The Walking Dead, we come across these people who are already a rag-tag group of survivors. They’ve lose people along the way, but they’ve found each other. The main difference in Fear the Walking Dead is that we’re with families at the beginning of it.”

As the Inquisitr previously reported, the Fear the Walking Dead families might need an apocalyptic outbreak to strengthen their bonds — the show’s teen characters will be struggling with issues like drug addiction and self-harm, and the parents’ problems will include dealing with ex-spouses. The male lead is a teacher named Sean Cabrera (Cliff Curtis), and the female lead is a guidance counselor named Nancy Tomkins (Kim Dickens). Nancy’s teen children will be played by Frank Dillane and Alycia Debnam-Carey. According to Entertainment Weekly, Orange is the New Black actress Elizabeth Rodriguez was recently cast as a series regular, but her role remains a mystery.

The group of survivors and the series’ setting won’t be the only elements of Fear the Walking Dead that differ from the original AMC show — the zombies will also look different. Nicotero pointed out that California is much drier than Georgia, and this will have an effect on how the walkers decompose. Because the series is set early on during the outbreak, they also won’t be quite as ripe as their Southern cousins.

Are you looking forward to watching the beginning of the end when Fear the Walking Dead premieres this summer?

[Image credit: AMC]