With new show runners in charge, a slew of new characters and one crossover, ‘Fear The Walking Dead’ will be a much different show in season 4…
When ‘Fear the Walking Dead’ returns on Sunday night, April 15, the show will look and feel much different from the one that viewers last saw at the end of season 3.
The series has already undergone major changes including new show runners — Andrew Chambliss and Ian Goldberg — taking over for Dave Erickson, who had been with ‘Fear the Walking Dead’ since the show was first created. Scott M. Gimple, who led ‘The Walking Dead’ for several seasons, is now serving as executive producer on the series with creative input on both of the wildly popular series on AMC.
There will also be a ton of new characters popping up in ‘Fear the Walking Dead’ season 4 including those played by Maggie Grace, Garret Dillahunt and Jenna Elfman. And of course the biggest addition will be Lennie James, whose character ‘Morgan’ will crossover from ‘The Walking Dead’ to ‘Fear the Walking Dead’ in season 4.
In many ways, ‘Walking Dead’ creator Robert Kirkman promises that this is going to feel like a whole new show while still familiar enough to make sure long time fans of the series will still stick around.
“I don’t want to spoil anything story-wise, but we are changing things a great deal,” Kirkman told EW recently. “It’s going to be a much different show that is not going to alienate any viewers that have been enjoying the show from season 1 to 3, but will give those people new things to love, and new characters to latch onto. It’s really going to shake things up.”
Adding Morgan to the show from ‘The Walking Dead’ is definitely the most anticipated moment for ‘Fear the Walking Dead’ when season 4 debuts in April. For the longest time, Kirkman insisted that the two series would never crossover with each other but he now says that there were hints of that idea from the very beginning but only now did they find a way for it to truly work while still benefitting both shows.
“When we started ‘Fear the Walking Dead’, the original idea actually included some things that would eventually tie in with the other show,” Kirkman said. “We wanted to give it a few seasons to find its sea legs, so to speak, and make sure that it stood on its own and provided its own experience. The goal was that eventually, once we had established that, we would find some kind of creative way to tie things in.
“When Scott suggested moving Morgan over it seemed like a really great idea and a really cool way to bring things in. I know the audience doesn’t really know exactly how that makes sense yet, or what’s actually coming of it. As the year progresses and you see exactly what it is, you’ll see that it’s going to be a really great story for Morgan that will give us a lot of cool insight into his character.”
For now, Morgan will still be a major part of the second half of ‘The Walking Dead’ season 8 until his character leaves that series and eventually returns in ‘Fear the Walking Dead’ in April.
There’s also still no word on which existing characters from ‘Fear the Walking Dead’ will return after a cliffhanger ended season 3 with only Madison (Kim Dickens) reappearing after a cataclysmic event that could have wiped out numerous others.