'Fear The Walking Dead' Spoilers: Showrunner Teases Story Structure Ahead Of Premiere

Despite AMC’s “The Walking Dead” companion series, “Fear the Walking Dead,” being just a matter of weeks away, so much of how the show will work is still shrouded in mystery. Now, a few more details have come to light about exactly what this show will be about.

Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, showrunner Dave Erickson revealed how he and creator Robert Kirkman approached the storytelling in the new companion series.

“Ultimately, it’s a family drama,” says Erickson. “One of the things that Robert [Kirkman] and I discussed from the very beginning was, we’re starting a little earlier in the apocalypse. And what that allowed us to do in the pilot and Season 1 is establish our core family, establish the problems and the conflicts that they have, and really let that be the initial world that we live in. And we layer in the onset of the apocalypse, we layer in our first walkers, but it’s really an effort to exacerbate the problems that already exist."

It was previously reported that the show will exist within the same universe as “The Walking Dead,” just set in a different part of the country and earlier in the zombie outbreak than when the pilot for the original series began. As a result, fans shouldn’t expect too much in the way of character crossovers, but informational crossovers are a different story.

Kirkman has said that the show will star Alycia Debnam-Carey as Alicia, the daughter to Kim Dicken’s character, Madison. They, along with Madison’s son, Nick (Frank Dillane), will figure out that the world is ending due to an impending zombie apocalypse that forces them to team up with Cliff Curtis’ character, Travis. When the series opens, the audience learns that Cliff and Madison are in a relationship now that both of their respective spouses are either gone or dead. If Erickson’s comments can be trusted, it looks like the show will focus on the dynamics of two broken homes coming together, using zombie as a stakes-raising device rather than the principal threat like on “The Walking Dead.”

AMC is betting big on the success of its hit drama to propel “Fear the Walking Dead” to new and exciting heights having already green lit it for Season 2. The series premieres sometime in August and will debut ahead of Season 6 of “The Walking Dead.”

Check out EW for exclusive first-look photos from the series as well as more spoilers from Erickson.