See the Opening Scene from Fear the Walking Dead Episode 1.01

While “The Walking Dead” is set during the zombie apocalypse, “Fear the Walking Dead” takes us back to before the zombie outbreak spread.

AMC’s The Walking Dead spinoff Fear the Walking Dead promises to differ from its predecessor in some significant ways.

As Fear the Walking Dead lurches menacingly closer to its Sunday premiere, AMC has released a preview of the pilot with a new clip comprising the show’s harrowing first three minutes.

“We’re going to see zombies unlike we’ve ever seen before”. The series premieres Sunday August 23rd at 9 p.m. ET on AMC.

Georgia-set The Walking Dead introduced its main character Rick Grimes quickly and – thanks to an injury that immediately put him into a coma for weeks – promptly inserted him into a world already transformed by zombies. And high school teacher Travis Manawa (Cliff Curtis) moved in with Madison, but still has his ex Liza (Elizabeth Rodriguez) and resentful son, Chris (Lorenzo James Henrie) to deal with.

Or better, depending on how much you enjoy the devastation of humanity depicted in “The Walking Dead“. We don’t really expect that it will be anywhere close to the original series, but so long as it generates solid ratings and the numbers for the flagship show stay relatively steady, all will be fine.

At Comic-Con in July, showrunner Dave Erickson said he and seriescreator Robert Kirkman wanted to do a show that was nearly the opposite of The Walking Dead.

And it isn’t actually a prequel, it’s a parallel story that begins a bit earlier than “The Walking Dead“. This time around however, the world starts going to hell in a Los Angeles church, as Nick (Frank Dillane) discovers his drug buddies in a dire state. “[There may be] a time that may come when we catch up with their chronology, but it’s not part of my thinking right now”. “They think they’re sick, they don’t know it’s the undead”. But “even though we start from a very specific family-drama place, the difficulties and conflicts they have will be quickly exacerbated by the apocalypse”, Erickson told Variety. Viewers in Germany and Austria will able to watch the first episode on Amazon Prime Video the day after the US broadcast.