AMC Has Announced Digital Spin-Offs Of ‘Better Call Saul’ And ‘Fear The Walking Dead’

Next year will be a big one for AMC, as three of its biggest TV series will end their runs, The Walking Dead, Better Call Saul, and Killing Eve. AMC, meanwhile, is selling ad time for those last three series, and in an effort to earn all it can out of these departing series, Variety reports that the network is also adding a few digital original series that can air on “YouTube, IGTV, SVOD, AVOD and FAST channels” (and AMC+, no doubt).

I would not expect any of the digital series to be crucial in understanding their parent series, but they might be fun diversions that enhance the stories. One such digital spin-off will be Dead in the Water, a scripted series tying into season six of Fear the Walking Dead that “tells the story of a submarine crew fighting for survival, cut off from the surface world just as the apocalypse hits, becoming a nuclear-fueled walker-filled death trap with no way out.” That submarine will be familiar to viewers of Fear — it washed up in Galveston, Texas; Morgan has the sought-after key to it; and it bears the message, “The End is the Beginning” written on it in spray paint.

Fear showrunners Andrew Chambliss and Ian Goldberg will produce along with Scott Gimple. Jacob Pinion, a writer on Fear who also wrote a digital tie-in last year surrounding Althea’s tapes, will script the series.

Meanwhile, AMC is also developing an animated prequel to Better Call Saul called Slippin’ Jimmy. Set many years before the events of Saul, it will be set in the home of young Jimmy and Chuck McGill in Cicero, Illinois. It is being created in the “retro style of Fat Albert” and each episode pays homage “to everything from spaghetti Westerns to Buster Keaton to After Hours.”

AMC is also developing Cooper’s Bar — about a “unique watering hole located in the backyard of one man’s bungalow” — and it comes from executive producer Rhea Seehorn, who plays Kim Wexler on Saul. She will also co-direct the digital series. Finally, the producers of Hot Ones are partnering with AMC on Run the Dish, a The Walking Dead-inspired cooking show featuring cuisines from the apocalypse.

No air dates have yet been set on any of the digital series.