As the cast of “Mad Men” begin to do more press appearances following the series finale, we are getting some interesting behind-the-scenes knowledge on how some of our favorite scenes came together.

One of the most memorable is the final shot in the show’s finale episode in which Don Draper meditates on a cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean and then cuts to a famous Coca-Cola commercial, “I’d Like to Buy the World a Coke.” 

While on “Jimmy Kimmel Live” Tuesday, Jon Hamm, who played Draper, gave some insight on that ending.

“Matt Weiner, who writes the show, had seized on this idea around season four,” Hamm told Kimmel.

The show ran for seven seasons.

But getting the commercial in the episode was far from easy.

“There was a couple of years process of clearing that with Coca-Cola,” he revealed.

Following the finale, Coca-Cola told People that “no money exchanged hands” between the show and Coke for the use of the commercial in the finale. 

Watch Hamm's full interview with Jimmy Kimmel below.

SEE ALSO: Elisabeth Moss says this memorable 'Mad Men' scene was not fun to shoot

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NOW WATCH: How the stars of AMC's blockbuster 'Mad Men' changed over the years

"Humans," AMC's upcoming new drama series, asks what would happen as we become more and more reliant on our devices.

The thriller takes place in a similar time to ours, except that robot technology is more advanced and its use is widespread.

"They share our homes, our jobs, and our lives and so become objects of our fear, love, and lust, and hatred,""Humans" executive producer Derek Wax told Business Insider.

"We just take them for granted," he continued. "I mean I just love the idea that they’re as normal to us as an iPhone or a tablet is today what would have seemed very odd 50 years ago. We’re all looking at our phones every five minutes now seems completely normal. The idea that in 50 years’ time this could be completely normal."

The drama focuses on three groups: Two human families and a connected group of human-like robots or "synths" as the series calls them. One family struggles with owning their new synth. In another, a man (played by "Captain America: Civil War's" William Hurt) creates a fatherly relationship with his and can't allow it to be replaced by a newer, more effective model.

"I think what we want to do is keep the audience torn and divided in their response to robots," Wax said. "They’re performing an incredible function. They are performing many of the things that humans don’t want to do and therefore they’re providing an incredible service. But at the same time, they’re also making certain people obsolescent."

The third group is a tightly connected band of synths led by a man named Joe ("Merlin" star Colin Morgan) whose backstory unravels over the course of the season.

"What we’re really doing is asking a big question, what makes us human?" Wax explained. "Can conscious machines ever be thought of as human or at least worthy of human level status and rights? At what point if a machine is capable of thinking and feeling, is capable of love and being loved? The Synths in the forest, there’s a real bond between them. They’re like a family." 

The series will certainly get viewers to think about our relationships to the things that make our lives easier, like a vacuuming Roomba, or like the "Battlebots" competition, which has robots ripping into each other for our entertainment.

"Already we are a gadget and machine dependent society," Wax pointed out. "iPhones, tablets, we call up the bank and we get an automated teller, we speak to a robot essentially. There’s drones that are flying planes and it’s robots that are operating on people in hospitals. Already people are talking about driverless trains, driverless cars, planes within a few years, people are saying there will not be any human pilot in a plane."

"Humans," a co-production with Channel 4, has already premiered in the UK earlier this month and it scored Channel 4's highest-rated show launch in at least 13 years.

It will debut here in the U.S. on Sunday, June 28 at 9 p.m. on AMC. 

Watch a featurette on the series below:

SEE ALSO: The stars of 'Bachelor' parody 'Unreal' disagree when it comes to finding love on TV

MORE: CNN is helping drones become a reality for news coverage

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NOW WATCH: People in Portland, Oregon are going crazy over these tiny houses

Paramount Pictures is partnering with two leading theatrical distributors for an unprecedented theater/digital revenue sharing plan that could change the way we watch first-run releases.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Paramount, AMC Theaters and Cineplex Entertainment have struck a deal in which two of the studio’s upcoming low budget horrors, “Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension” and “Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse” will be available in theaters exclusively for only two weeks before going onto digital home release platforms.

Since the VCR-era of the 1980s, the standard for studios has been waiting 90 days after a movie debuts in theaters before the title is available on other platforms.

According to the agreement, The Wrap reports, AMC and Cineplex will receive a percentage of any of the studio’s revenue for the period titles are available digitally through the 90 days of the initial U.S. release.

The WSJ story also states, if the early release plan is successful for the two horror titles, Paramount will make the strategy standard for its future films, which include franchises like “Transformers,” “Mission: Impossible,” and “Star Trek.”

This is not the first time a studio has tried to shrink the theatrical release window.

In 2011, Universal planned to release “Tower Heist” on VOD to Comcast cable subscribers in two cities at a premium price two weeks after the film debuted in theaters. That was quickly canceled following overwhelming resistance from the National Association of Theater Owners. 

“Movie-lovers want us to respond and meet their desires. Exhibitors want to keep their businesses strong. Filmmakers want us to put a premium on the theatrical experience and optimize consumer access to their creations. Our hope and intent is that this initiative offers a degree of innovation that benefits all parties,” Brad Grey, chairman and CEO of Paramount Pictures, told The Wrap.

“Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension” opens in theaters October 23, while “Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse” comes out October 30.

SEE ALSO: I got a MoviePass subscription to see in-theater movies and it's saved me $50 in 5 months

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NOW WATCH: 'Star Wars' just surprised everyone with a brand new app and there's all sorts of crazy stuff packed inside

"The Walking Dead" companion series "Fear the Walking Dead" finally has a premiere date!

"Fear" will launch Sunday August 23 at 9 p.m.

AMC announced the air date at the panel for the new "Walking Dead" series Friday afternoon at San Diego Comic-Con.

The new series will take place in Los Angeles and star Kim Dickens and Cliff Curtis.

Meanwhile, "The Walking Dead" will return to AMC Sunday, October 11 at 9 p.m. with a 90-minute special.

AMC released a new trailer for the series earlier Friday. 

SEE ALSO: The first trailer for season 6 of "The Walking Dead"

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NOW WATCH: The first trailer for the new 'Walking Dead' season just dropped and looks as terrifying as ever

It's hard to put a label on AMC's upcoming action drama "Into the Badlands," which is partially what is so exciting about it.

"Into the Badlands" looks to mix elements of both westerns and martial arts. With this genre-bending, it is no surprise that it involves one of the producers of "Pulp Fiction." But really, it looks like a throwback to the great 1970s TV series "Kung Fu." This show could do David Carradine proud.

"Into the Badlands" premieres on AMC in November.

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One of the things that stands out on AMC's "Humans" is the unique and believable way the robots, or synths as they're called on the series, move.

Producers didn't leave that very important aspect of the show's robots to chance. It held a Synth School.

"From the outset we wanted to make the Synths as close to humans as possible, not jerky or robotic," executive producer Derek Wax told Business Insider. "This is part of the design, obviously, so that Synths can deceive humans and fake that they are human."

Synth School was taught by choreographer and movement director Dan O'Neill, who taught all the actors and extras playing synths. More than 100 extras, 20 at a time, attended the classes. O'Neill, who collaborated with theater company Frantic Assembly on developing the synth movement, studied aspects of martial arts practice Tai Chi, and the grace and economy of movements in a Japanese tea ritual, as well.

Synth movement is based on three major principles: The movement had to be economical, as Synths would want to conserve battery energy; they should be graceful, because humans should desire it for its beautiful design (like an iPhone), and their movements should show purpose, because every task would've already been planned from start to finish in the synth's processor.

"We didn't want their movements too comical or boxy," O'Neill told BI. "We started out with workshops at Frantic Assembly where we thought about the way they would move and why they would move. We also thought about what would make humans more comfortable around them, so we thought about letting them blink every so often, something humans would do."

"They would not be making extraneous movements in the way that human beings twitch and jerk and wave their arms around when they’re talking and use all sorts of useless movements," said Wax.

Humans airs Sundays at 9 p.m. on AMC.

SEE ALSO: AMC's new show 'Humans' will change the way you look at your Roomba

MORE: How Spike miniseries 'Tut' helped solidify the network's new future

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NOW WATCH: WHERE ARE THEY NOW? The original 1993 'Jurassic Park' cast today

About 15 minutes into the pilot episode of “The Walking Dead” in 2010 we come across Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) as he awakens from a coma in a deserted hospital. He’s alone and confused, and is left to explore a post-apocalyptic nightmare filled with zombies.

Its spinoff companion series, “Fear the Walking Dead," which premieres later this month on AMC, opens in a similar fashion, except the hospital gets swapped out for a different location and we get introduced to the world pre-apocalypse, through the eyes of a very different character.

And that’s where many of the parallels stop. 

We’ve previewed the first two episodes of “Fear the Walking Dead,” and while we’re enjoying it, it's certainly not its predecessor. Before you're quick to sigh, that's not a terrible thing.  

Like the fantastic Telltale game series, "Fear the Walking Dead," or "Fear," as AMC and the cast and crew refer to it, is a completely separate chapter of a larger franchise.

As creator Robert Kirkman has noted, and executive producer Greg Nicotero told me at the end of last week, “Fear" is a different beast. As a whole, "The Walking Dead" franchise refers to a worldwide epidemic and this prequel/companion series gives another look at how others are dealing with it. While “The Walking Dead” focuses on how Southeast corner of the nation, “Fear” will look at how inhabitants of Los Angeles dealt with the undead apocalypse in the early days.

Don’t expect to get “The Walking Dead” with a clear leader like sheriff Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) from episode one. This is more of a mixed bag. We’re introduced to many more characters right from the get-go with a blended family consisting of a guidance counselor, Madison (Kim Dickens), an English teacher Travis (Cliff Curtis), a brainy teen (Alycia Debnam-Carey), her boyfriend (Maestro Harrell), and her drug addict brother (Frank Dillane). Curtis's character Travis has a separate family from another marriage with a son Chris and ex-wife Liza (Elizabeth Rodriguez, "Orange is the New Black").

There are a lot of people here to be worried over and whether or not they’ll make it through the first few episodes. Not a huge shocker:They all won't.

As a whole, the pilot is a lot of introduction and set up before getting around to the reason we're here — this mysterious (or not so mysterious if you have any clue what "The Walking Dead" is about) illness that's spreading around Los Angeles and which has been reported in other cities. In some ways, it's reminiscent of other horror items, specifically 2011's "Contagion," except we're not on the hunt for patient zero in "Fear."

Fans of “The Walking Dead” will be watching closely for hints at how the zombie apocalypse started. While it's certainly one of the most interesting facets of this new series, don't expect to get many answers. Though hints are provided, Kirkman has assured us time and time again we won't learn how it all began. He solidified that in press notes provided to journalists ahead of the series' debut. Essentially, that’s not the point of this new series. Instead, it's to show us how another subset are dealing with the apocalypse.

"Fear" is a little slow to get off off the ground, but things really start to pick up in the last 15 minutes of the premiere as more people begin to notice everything isn't right in the world and this "mysterious illness" begins to spread more rapidly.  

Thankfully the two leads, Dickens and Curtis's characters, Madison and Travis, provide much of the reason for you to stick around. While Travis is trying to figure out how to balance two families, Madison has become one of the break-out leaders so far, quick to take charge of a situation. It's early to say, but I think she'll be the new Rick of the series.

The important question: Is it as good as “The Walking Dead”?

No.

Not yet anyway. That doesn’t mean it can’t or won’t be. It’s just extremely difficult to live up to the pilot episode of the original back in 2010. It’s one of my favorites I can watch over many times.

When Rick goes into that pitch black hospital stairway with nothing but a match to light his way, it's terrifying. At the episode's end when he heads into Atlanta and is overtaken by a zombie horde, you're left on a cliffhanger with Rick trapped inside an army tank surrounded by the undead while his horse is getting picked apart. 

For a show called "Fear," you never get a moment quite like that in the first two episodes. While Madison and Travis are fearing for the lives and those of their respective family members on screen, in no moment of the series' first two episodes does the audience ever fear for anyone's lives as the title suggests.

What’s so special about the original 2010 premiere is that you’re discovering this post-apocalyptic world for the first time along with the protagonist. You’re both asking all the same questions — What’s going on? Where is everyone? — and, for the most part, you’re learning the answers along with good guy sheriff Rick Grimes.

Five years later on “Fear," we come in as slightly omniscient viewers. A lot of that same curiosity and wonder is taken away here. What’s this mysterious illness falling upon a number of Angelenos? No surprise there. (Well, other than the fact that we don't know the source of this mysterious illness.)

Other than that, there are two problems I have with "Fear" so far.

One revolves around the show falling into the pitfalls of cheap, easy scares. You know, the jump scares you'll see when watching a horror flick sometimes. Example — Is that guy sitting in that far off chair actually sleeping or may he be a zombie? What about that kid with his head down on his desk in class?

The biggest problem, which I think many will have with the show, is seeing who ends up getting infected first. I'm not allowed to, nor will I spoil who gets turned first, but if you're a long-time viewer of the series, it will hardly be a surprise. Here's all I'll say on this front — "The Walking Dead" has a very diverse cast until it comes to selecting who they're willing to kill off first. It makes you wish the series took some more risks early on instead of being predictable.

Faults aside, at the end of the day, if you are really invested in “The Walking Dead," chances are you’re going to tune in to “Fear" and you're probably going to enjoy it enough to stick through all of season one's six episodes. The new series adds another level of depth for fans obsessed with the franchise. 

Plus, you get to watch the world as it's being dismantled, and, from the looks of it, that's going to begin to get more chaotic than an episode of "The Walking Dead" real fast.

“Fear the Walking Dead” premieres on AMC August 23 at 9 p.m.

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NOW WATCH: There's a good reason 'The Walking Dead' creator doesn't use the word zombie

One of the biggest mysteries on AMC's hit series "The Walking Dead" is finding out how the zombie apocalypse began.

When AMC announced the series' spinoff/companion series, "Fear the Walking Dead," one of the early theories was that we'd finally learn exactly how it all began.

It made sense. After all, the series will take place shortly before some events in "The Walking Dead." 

We've previewed the first two episodes of the new series, and while we certainly get a lot of hints about the outbreak in "Fear," creator Robert Kirkman maintains we won't learn how the end of civilization began.

In press notes for the companion series, Kirkman is asked outright whether we "will we see the origin of the virus."

In short, his answer is a strong negative.

This is his full response: 

I still maintain that’s not an important aspect of the story. I think watching Fear the Walking Dead, you’ll get a bigger picture of the world, but as far as digging down to actually find the smoking gun and realizing what that causes, it’s really just unimportant to the overall story. If we were to do a companion to The Walking Dead and it was about a bunch of scientists that were working to find the cure and finding out the origins, that would bore me to tears.

"Fear the Walking Dead" premieres on AMC August 23 at 9 p.m.

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NOW WATCH: There's a good reason 'The Walking Dead' creator doesn't use the word zombie

Anyone who's a fan of "The Walking Dead" knows zombies aren't referred to as zombies on the hit series.

According to creator Robert Kirkman, the concept of the term just simply don't exist in the series' universe.

Instead, in the television series — and the comic from which the series is adapted — zombies have been called a range of names including walkers, roamers, lurkers, biters, and even geeks.

When the show's prequel spin-off series "Fear the Walking Dead" premieres later this month on AMC, it will also slowly introduce zombies. 

However, they'll be referred to in an entirely new way. 

Instead of calling the undead roamers or walkers, they'll be known simply as "infected" to reflect the early days of the apocalypse in a new setting. Unlike "The Walking Dead," which takes place on the east coast of the United States, "Fear," as the cast and crew refer to it, will take place in Los Angeles from the perspective of an entirely new group of people.

"One of the things I like about the way Robert [Kirkman] did it in the comic is it does feel regional whether they're [called] walkers, or roamers, or biters,""Fear the Walking Dead" showrunner and executive producer Dave Erickson told Tech Insider. "We definitely didn't want to use any of those descriptors in our show and we also talked a lot about how the outbreak would be perceived and I think, for the most part, if this were to happen in real life, you would assume it was a virus, you would assume it was some kind of a sickness." 

The name infected is a natural extension of how someone unaware of a zombie apocalypse would interpret the situation initially.

Of course, the "Fear" crew didn't only have to figure out how to refer to these new zombies, they also had to think about their look. Because "Fear" takes place at the beginning of the zombie apocalypse, the infected won't look quite like the walkers and roamers we're used to seeing on the AMC series.

Instead, they'll look closer to zombies we saw in season one of "The Walking Dead" and earlier.

"In terms of the look of the walkers, or infected, we talked a lot about how we distinguish our undead from that of the original show. One of the things about our zombies is we're very early in the apocalypse," Erickson continued. "For the most part, our walkers, they look human, which poses certain challenges to our characters because going into this story they don't have a George Romero shorthand. One of the things that Robert talked about when he and I first sat down was, you know, the question of violence and the difficulty in killing. We don't have walkers who [are] atrophied and already look like monsters, we have colleagues or friends and family members you were having coffee with the day before." 

However, just because the newly discovered undead will be referred to as "infected," it doesn't mean that's how they'll always be known. Erickson hinted we may see the name evolve over time.

"Infected seemed to be the best shorthand — at least for season one and we'll continue to think about other west coast terms as we go [forward]," Erickson said.

We'll have more from our interview with Erickson ahead of the "Fear the Walking Dead."

The series premieres on AMC August 23 at 9 p.m.  

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NOW WATCH: There's a good reason 'The Walking Dead' creator doesn't use the word zombie

Later this month, AMC will premiere a spin-off companion series to its hit series "The Walking Dead."

Called "Fear the Walking Dead," the series will serve as a prequel of sorts. The new show will take place before the start of the zombie apocalypse fans have become familiar with on the original show while showing the experience of the end of the world from a group of fresh eyes.

While we know the companion series will take place at some point before "The Walking Dead," we're not completely clear on the time frame of the spin-off and when it will begin.

When viewers first tuned into "The Walking Dead" in 2010 we were introduced to Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) in a world devoid of any sort of virus or sickness. After a gunshot wound put him in a coma, the next time we see him is an unexplained time later where the world has been transformed into the apocalyptic wasteland with which viewers have become familiar.

Sure, "Fear the Walking Dead" showrunner and executive producer Dave Erickson said at the Television Critics Association's press tour season one will take place over the course of three weeks — a portion of the time when Rick was in his coma — but when exactly will the show start in comparison to "The Walking Dead"? 

We asked Erickson if he could elaborate. 

"Our starting points are similar. The first day of our show is around or about the day that Rick was shot and fell into his coma," "Fear the Walking Dead" showrunner and executive producer Dave Erickson told Tech Insider. 

"Robert has said for him, the coma, Rick was probably out four to five weeks," he continued. "If you count the days of season one of our show, we’re probably around week three [by the end of the season]. So ... the discovery will continue. Our characters will be up to speed, and they will know that the world has changed and the apocalypse has come, but there’s still going to be a lot of real estate to explore."

"Put it this way, when Rick gets to Atlanta [in 'The Walking Dead'], and he catches up and he finds Shane, and Lori and Carl, they got a camp set up already. They know what the walkers are, they know how to defend themselves, and they’ve already created a sort of a system in their own sort of strange dysfunctional family," said Erickson. "That’s something we will continue to explore as we go into season two [on 'Fear']. We will not quite be caught up."

"Fear the Walking Dead" premieres on AMC August 23 at 9 p.m.

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NOW WATCH: There's a good reason 'The Walking Dead' creator doesn't use the word zombie

When season six of "The Walking Dead" premieres in October, the zombies will be more gruesome than ever. 

In stark contrast, when the series' companion show "Fear the Walking Dead" premieres August 23, we'll be introduced to the zombies, or walkers and roamers as they're known to fans, all over again from a different perspective.

However, the challenge this time around was more than just going back to season one of "The Walking Dead" and reimagining the looks of walkers from five years ago. Zombies on "Fear the Walking Dead," a sort-of prequel series to AMC's hit series, won't look like the ones viewers were first introduced to in 2010.

Instead, the new show will go back even farther to when the zombie apocalypse first started spreading. This was a time where people weren't aware friends and family members were returning from the dead. They were just "infected" with some mysterious illness. 

One of the big challenges with "Fear" was figuring out how to create zombies which looked gruesome enough to pass as the undead, but which could also pass for human from afar.

"One of the things that was important that [showrunner] Dave Erickson and [creator] Robert [Kirkman] had mentioned to me was in an effort for this outbreak to sweep across society so quickly, you have to have situations where someone’s not gonna look at a walker in the middle of the street and immediately recognize that that person’s dangerous," executive producer and special effects artist Greg Nicotero told Tech Insider. "It’s much more set up where you see somebody and you see someone is sick but you’re not gonna immediately assume that that person is going to be responsible for a potential outbreak. They have to look relatively harmless until you get closer and then you start looking at their eyes and you start noticing that there’s some wounds or some dried blood on them or something like that."

So, how do they look?

"We don’t have as much decomposition as we do on ‘The Walking Dead,’ because, clearly, the walkers haven’t been around as much. But you’ll even notice, you’ve seen in the Comic-Con trailer and in the first episode, the first walker that we see has a knife embedded into her chest," Nicotero continued. "That was done strategically to show the audience that, you know, okay, this woman is clearly undead, but when Nick [Frank Dillane] looks at her he sees the knife protruding from her chest but she’s not screaming, she’s bleeding, but she’s not reacting to it. So, he then has to process exactly what he’s looking at. So, we took a much different, cerebral approach to the walkers by playing up some of the damage that’s occurred to them during this sort of outbreak."

A big focus will be on the eyes. Nicotero says they went with a cataract look for the eyes, which stands out any time you see one of the newly undead on "Fear."

"We didn’t go as severe as ‘The Walking Dead’ contact lenses because in ‘The Walking Dead’ the eyes are pretty dramatic," said Nicotero. "I look at the eyes like rotting eggs in that the longer that they sit around, the longer that those zombies walk around, the more decomposed and disgusting the eyes get. But at the beginning, the eyes look a bit more like just hemorrhaging and sort of cataract and that’s what the eyes in the beginning of the ‘Fear the Walking Dead’ look like."

Here's an examples of eyes early on in "The Walking Dead":

And here's how they'll look on "Fear":

Another factor that will play into the look of the zombies is location.

Up until now "The Walking Dead" has taken place on the east coast, down in Atlanta while slowly working its way up to Alexandria, Virginia. The Los Angeles setting of "Fear the Walking Dead" will add a new dimension to the zombies.

"The climate is very different. We began exploring some of the aspects of a much more desert type climate," Nicotero explained. "In Georgia, it’s very humid, but the idea that we will ultimately get to walkers that decompose in a very different way that have a lot of the moisture drawn out of their bodies and sort of simulate a more mummified look is definitely a direction that we’ve talked about."

"Specific to the walkers, it’s a drier environment ...We see it toward the end of the season, but the walkers would be more desiccated,""Fear" showrunner Dave Erickson told Tech Insider in a separate interview. "That was part of the fun part of the conversation, especially with Greg: What would environment do to the dead and how they would look? We tried to reflect that as the season … when we get to later episodes, we’re a little bit deeper into the apocalypse. We have a few opportunities to explore that as well."

Nicotero says fans shouldn't expect to see many zombies in season one of "Fear the Walking Dead." Since he's been doing double duty working on season six of "The Walking Dead," he's okay with that.

"We don’t have nearly the sheer volume of walkers as we do on ‘The Walking Dead’ because we’re still early in the zombie apocalypse on ‘Fear,’" says Nicotero. "If I had to worry about 400 or 500 zombies a day on the spin-off, it would have been a little bit more than we could bite off, but I think we’re gonna go into production on season 2 once six of 'The Walking Dead' [episodes] has wrapped." 

Nicotero was only able to be on set for "Fear" for three episodes. Because of ... Nicotero expects to be even more involved with season two of "Fear."

"Fear the Walking Dead" will premiere on AMC August 23 at 9 p.m. 

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NOW WATCH: The first trailer for the new 'Walking Dead' season just dropped and looks as terrifying as ever

AMC released the first three minutes of its "Walking Dead" spinoff, "Fear the Walking Dead," ahead of its premiere on Sunday.

The clip introduces us to Nick (Frank Dillane), a 19-year-old drug addict, who quickly learns that the world is changing rapidly and even your closest of lovers could be the one to bring death to your doorstep. What he'll discover in these short minutes will change his life forever.

"Fear the Walking Dead" takes part in the same world as "The Walking Dead," but in the early days of the zombie apocalypse.

From "The Walking Dead" creator Robert Kirkman and showrunner Dave Erickson, the show revolves around the "outbreak" of some disease that's making the citizens of a small town into cannibals. 

Watch the first three minutes below:

 "Fear the Walking Dead" premieres Sunday, August 23 at 9 p.m. on AMC.

SEE ALSO: Spinoff 'Fear the Walking Dead' strolls into view Sunday

SEE ALSO: How the zombies on 'The Walking Dead’ spin-off will be different from the original show

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NOW WATCH: There's a good reason 'The Walking Dead' creator doesn't use the word zombie

"Fear the Walking Dead," is set to premiere Sunday on AMC.

The companion series to "The Walking Dead,""Fear"will be set in the early days of the zombie apocalypse before the undead roamed the earth.

With no comic to base the series on, one would imagine there are a lot of other places in "The Walking Dead" universe to turn to for inspiration. Places like the Telltale video game series, and other book series from "Walking Dead" creator Robert Kirkman.

But instead, "Fear the Walking Dead" showrunner Dave Erickson told Tech Insider there were a few movies in particular he checked out while doing research.

"I actually watched and re-watched ‘Apocalypse Now’ while I was writing the pilot and then as we got into the season," Erickson told Tech Insider. "There’s something in the surreal juxtapositions of the everyday with the horror of the apocalypse that I just find interesting and there’s a lot of thematics in ‘Apocalypse’ that will play out over the course of our season one, and over the course of the series."

"In terms of tone, we wanted this [Fear] to be about the shark you don’t see," he continued. "We wanted it to be about the dread and the anticipation and the fear of what was to come and also this sense of ... hopefully the audience is leaning in because they know more than our characters do, and that to me is fun as well."

Erickson also says"28 Days Later" was among the films he watched. Then when they hired Adam Davidson ("Hell on Wheels") to direct the pilot episode, the two talked about a few other films to take into consideration.  

"One of the films that Adam suggested I see was Phil Kaufman's 'Invasion of the Body Snatchers,'" explained Erickson. "It’s a bit dated, but it does very much have that sense of paranoia — what the hell is going on — and there’s a core group of people who can see this coming, but they might be crazy and they’re not being listened to. All of that, I found psychologically was interesting and it’s something we wanted to explore in the pilot and over the course of the first season."

Another big influence on "Fear the Walking Dead" was "Five Year," a series Erickson worked on with "The Walking Dead" creator Robert Kirkman prior to 2010 for Sony Pictures television, before the original AMC show was in the works.

"It was a pre-apocalyptic family drama," said Erickson of "Five Year." "Basically, it’s the meteor is coming, you have five years to live, what do you do in the time you have left? I had not read the [Walking Dead] comic at that point."

Though Erickson says he wrote a pilot for the series, it never came to be. However, some of the ideas for that original series wound up inspiring and laying some of the foundation for "Fear."

"The challenge in that pilot ['Five Year'] … it is very much about the family dynamic because the threat is there, you know that. It’s more aggressive obviously in ‘The Walking Dead’ than in ‘Fear’ because the threat is made manifest fairly quickly, and there are zombies that are trying to kill you. Whereas, we were doing the show which was a little more … it was slightly more esoteric because you know the end of the world is coming but it’s not like there’s a meteor attacking you every single episode," said Erickson. "But yeah ...  the confusion, the complication, the heartache that goes with any family dynamic. I think, yeah, very much there are elements that are in that pilot that I think we used in the pilot and in the show ['Fear the Walking Dead']."

In fact, if you tune into the premiere episode of "Fear" Sunday, you'll be able to catch a nod to "Five Year" in the episode. I can't tell you exactly what it is yet, but keep your eyes on a classroom chalkboard that appears in the premiere.

"Fear the Walking Dead" premieres Sunday, August 23 at 9 p.m. on AMC.

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NOW WATCH: The first trailer for the new 'Walking Dead' season just dropped and looks as terrifying as ever

The highly-anticipated prequel series to AMC's "The Walking Dead" doesn't premiere until Sunday, but you can get your first look at the show —"Fear the Walking Dead"— now.

AMC released the first three minutes of the new show on Facebook for fans to check out. 

In it, we get our first look at how one of the series' new zombies will look.

While we've talked a bit about how the zombies on the new show will differ from those on the spin-off, you can now see for yourself.

First, check it out below:

 The series opens introducing us to a set of eyes opening up. Those eyes belong to one of our new lead characters. Say hello to Nick Clark (Frank Dillane).

If you're a big fan of "The Walking Dead," the scene is similar to a moment from the original show's 2010 premiere in which we first see Rick Grimes awake from his coma.

Nick's not waking up from any coma though. While "The Walking Dead" is set during the zombie apocalypse, "Fear the Walking Dead" takes us back to before the zombie outbreak spread. However, from the look of his surroundings, he very well could be.

Nick's in an abandoned church, but it doesn't seem like he headed there alone. He sets off, shouting out for a girl named Gloria. On the way, he hears someone scream out in pain and comes across several corpses.

He goes into panic mode.

As the teaser comes to a close, he finds Gloria, but it looks like she's one of the undead.

"Fear the Walking Dead" will premiere August 23 at 9 p.m. on AMC.

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NOW WATCH: The first trailer for the new 'Walking Dead' season just dropped and looks as terrifying as ever

Don't expect "Walking Dead" crossover episodes, a character you already know, or even the zombies to look the same on AMC's "Fear the Walking Dead." 

Producers aimed to create a true standalone story with the new series.

"'Fear the Walking Dead' is truly a standalone series, a new story set in a new location, East LA, just as it's on the brink of the apocalypse," AMC President, Charlie Collier, said during the Television Critics Association press tour last month.

"Fear the Walking Dead" premieres Sunday, August 23 at 9 p.m. on AMC.

Here are five ways it won't be like its predecessor, "The Walking Dead."

SEE ALSO: Watch the gory first 3 minutes of AMC's "Fear the Walking Dead"

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1. Location

"FTWD" takes place in East LA, California rather than Atlanta and Virginia like "TWD." The distance certainly influences a lot, especially the phrases they use.

"We do have [zombies], we call them infected,""FTWD's" showrunner said at TCA. "We don't call them walkers. We're coming up with as much cool West Coast verbiage as we can."

2. Time

What happened during Rick Grimes coma? How did the zombie apocalypse go down? Those questions will be answered on "FTWD."

"None of us saw what was happening as Rick lay in that hospital bed," AMC president Charlie Collier said at TCA. "We didn't get to watch the world turn. Well, that is, until now. 'Fear the Walking Dead' takes us inside the earliest moments of the zombie apocalypse and allows us to watch as civilization is upended and everything goes so very wrong."

3. They're just average people

The people of "FTWD" are just living their lives. As the madness in the city grows, they're just trying to keep their family safe.

"Unlike Rick and his crew, the folks we'll meet on 'Fear' are not seasoned survivors," AMC boss Charlie Collier said at TCA. "They're a diverse group witnessing the implosion of society at its breaking point. They're regular people trying to manage their complicated lives, including divorce and blended families, children with drug addictions, et cetera."

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"The Walking Dead" companion series "Fear the Walking Dead" premieres this Sunday on AMC.

We've already seen it, and, if you're a fan of "The Walking Dead," we think you're going to like what you see.

Season one will kick off with six episodes leading right into the next season of "The Walking Dead."

Can't wait for Sunday? Here's everything you should know ahead of the premiere.

"Fear the Walking Dead" will take place during the early days of the zombie apocalypse.

Unlike "The Walking Dead," which started in Georgia, the new show will take place in Los Angeles, California, where there are an estimated 10.1 million people.

(Source: US Census Bureau)

The series will take place mostly parallel to "The Walking Dead," focusing around another group of people as they slowly learn about the existence of the undead.

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The zombie apocalypse is about to invade your televisions all over again — just not in the way that you expect. 

"Fear the Walking Dead," the anticipated spin-off series set before the main events of AMC's "The Walking Dead," moves the action to the West coast and focuses on a cast of characters with a very different dynamic than the main series.

While "The Walking Dead" follows a motley crew of survivors and wanderers in search of safety, "Fear the Walking Dead" centers around the plight of two diverse, very different families as they come together to try to understand and ride out what they only know as a rapid and virulent infection. 

That family dynamic is a big part of what sets the spin-off show apart from the original series, and will doubtless be a source of much of the show's drama and tension. 

In anticipation of the series premiere on August 23, 2015, let's get acquainted with the group of people we'll be following through the end of the world as we know it. 

Kim Dickens plays high school guidance counselor, Madison Clark.

A widowed mother of two teens, Madison has just moved in with her boyfriend (who also has a family of his own) and is generally trying to make the best of life. The spread of a mysterious infection isn't going to make that very easy. 

Her youngest child, Alicia Clark (Alycia Debnam-Carey) is a college-bound model student with big plans and a bright future.

Her other child, Nick (Frank Dillane), is Madison's oldest son, and her biggest headache.

Addicted to drugs and tangled in trouble, Nick might finally be on the road to recovery — even though the rest of the world is undergoing the exact opposite. 

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 "Present Shock" author Douglas Rushkoff explains why we love zombie shows and post-apocalyptic movies. We're stuck in a nonstop feedback loop of information, without any beginning or end, and it causes us consistent stress and anxiety. These alternate realities act as an escape from that stress. 

Produced by Joe Avella

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"The Walking Dead" companion series "Fear the Walking Dead" premieres this Sunday on AMC.

We've already seen it, and, if you're a fan of "The Walking Dead," we think you're going to like what you see.

Season one will kick off with six episodes leading right into the next season of "The Walking Dead."

Can't wait for Sunday? Here's everything you should know ahead of the premiere.

"Fear the Walking Dead" will take place during the early days of the zombie apocalypse.

Unlike "The Walking Dead," which started in Georgia, the new show will take place in Los Angeles, California, where there are an estimated 10.1 million people.

(Source: US Census Bureau)

The series will take place mostly parallel to "The Walking Dead," focusing around another group of people as they slowly learn about the existence of the undead.

NOW WATCH: This guy combined photos of celebrities to create portraits of flawless superhumans

Warning: There are some spoilers ahead if you haven't watched the premiere episode of "Fear the Walking Dead."

"Fear the Walking Dead," the spin-off companion series to AMC's "The Walking Dead" debuted Sunday evening, and it wasted no time getting straight to the undead.

We're introduced to the zombie apocalypse through the eyes of Nick Clark (Frank Dillane) who awakens in an abandoned church, and, soon afterward, comes across the first zombie of the series, a female as she's feasting away on another individual.

Horrified and confused by what he sees, Nick hauls it out of there, running barefoot down the streets of Los Angeles before getting struck by a car. 

Next, he does what anyone else who has just seen a flesh-eating zombie tearing away at another human being would do. He tells people what he saw. 

However, there's just one problem. Nick's a drug addict so no one believes him. Doctors, police, and even his mother all believe it's a crazy hallucination brought on by the drugs in his system.

Poor Nick.

The rest of the premiere episode introduces us to the rest of Nick's large blended family as they, too, begin to see strange occurrences around them and they slowly begin to realize that everything isn't hunky-dory in Los Angeles, and that heroin-addict Nick may have been telling the truth all along.

While that's the version of the premiere we saw on screen, "Fear the Walking Dead" executive producer and special effects artist Greg Nicotero told Tech Insider the episode could have happened a bit differently. 

"There’s a version of the pilot of ‘Fear the Walking Dead’ that the whole thing could be construed as a hallucination," said Nicotero.

He said the idea for the episode sounded similar to one of the biggest fan theories surrounding the events of the original series.

"Much like in ‘The Walking Dead’ everyone’s like, ‘Oh, one of these days, Rick’s gonna wake up and we’re gonna find out that he was in a coma the whole time and the zombie apocalypse never happened," said Nicotero.

Of course, "The Walking Dead" creator Robert Kirkman put to rest any theories on the entirety of the series being one big coma dream last year after the theory started making the rounds online. 

While we didn't end up seeing the apocalypse as one big hallucination Sunday night, Nicotero loves how the episode ended up coming together.

"I think we sort of teased the audience at the beginning, and I love the aspect of … everyone assuming that it was a hallucination and of course he [Nick] doesn’t even trust his own mind in terms of what he really saw," says Nicotero. "We’re basically playing out the beginning of the zombie apocalypse through the eyes of a drug addict. And everything in his mind is questioned. It’s not until somebody else is standing next to him and sees something that we really know, ‘Okay, something’s crazy.’"

"Fear the Walking Dead" airs Sundays at 9 p.m. on AMC.

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