'Fear The Walking Dead', the spin-off to AMC’s hit zombie series 'The Walking Dead', has been given a premiere date of August 23rd at 9 p.m, with a special 90 minute episode. The announcement was made during AMC’s panel at this year’s San Diego Comic Con, where a special series trailer was also shown to the audience.

kim dickensKim Dickens stars in AMC’s ‘Fear The Walking Dead’.

The series is being billed as a prequel/spin off to 'The Walking Dead' and stars Gone Girl’s Kim Dickens as well as Cliff Curtis, Frank Dillane and Alycia Debnam-Carey. In the trailer shown at SDCC, Dickens is seen as guidance counsellor Madison and shows the time before the zombie apocalypse hits.

The show’s characters are completely separate from 'The Walking Dead's' although a future crossover has not yet been ruled out. Promisingly, the series’ script has been written by Robert Kirkman, author of the original graphic novels on which the 'Walking Dead' series is based.

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Speaking about the new series AMC's president Charlie Collier said in a statement, "Robert Kirkman, Dave Erickson and the fantastic writers, producers, cast and crew responsible for bringing 'Fear The Walking Dead' to life have been hard at work creating an entirely distinct and compelling new series. We join Fear before the rise of the zombie apocalypse with an interesting family dynamic as its entry point."

Despite not having premiered yet the show has already picked up a second season order, something which has helped spur on Kirkman."We feel empowered by this two-season commitment, a serious show of faith from our network partner AMC," the writer said in a statement back in March.

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"I personally take it as a sign that they believe, like we do, that we've accomplished our goal of developing something original that can pay tribute to the original show and expand the world I created while at the same time having something new to say with this story."

“I'm very grateful that we now have the opportunity to tell this amazing story and show the fans that we really haven't scratched the surface yet when it comes to 'The Walking Dead," the writer added. ‘Fear The Walking Dead’ premieres August 23rd at 9 p.m on AMC.