A few months back, AMC announced that their incredibly popular zombie-centric television show would be getting a ‘companion series’ expected to launch sometime in 2015. Now comes the news, courtesy of TVLine’s Michael Ausiello, that the most recent talks suggest that this spin-off may be “a prequel of sorts, one that would chronicle the early days of the epidemic and the effort to contain it.” Although AMC has yet to comment on the report, Kirkman told IGN in a recent interview that “It definitely won’t be set in Georgia…It’s important to us that this show exists on its own.”

While it’s not exactly a shock AMC plans to milk The Walking Dead for everything it’s worth, the idea of a prequel definitely makes me question its potential for success. Honestly, fans are more than likely going to watch no matter what, but handcuffing the series by making it a prequel about containing ‘the epidemic’ doesn’t really seem to be the most interesting possibility. While I agree with Kirkman that it should be a completely separate entity that takes place in another location, over-explaining the reasons behind something are often a point of contention amongst the original’s fans (i.e. the Star Wars prequels).

Anyway, this prequel news has hardly been confirmed and with AMC still in the very early planning stages, this discussion could all very well be for naught. For now, it’s probably best to just focus on The Walking Dead as it currently stands.

News Courtesy of TVLine, IGN