Fear The Walking Dead, AMC’s pre-zombie apocalypse spin-off of its post-zombie apocalypse hit The Walking Dead, will be back for another season.
The network announced the series renewal today, only days after Fear’s second season premiered to a whopping 8.8 million viewers. The show, which follows a new group of survivors struggling through society’s collapse in the midst of a zombie virus outbreak, will return for a 16-episode season three in 2017. The series’ Chris Hardwick-hosted after-show, Talking Dead: Fear, will also be back for another season, continuing to air after each new episode.
In a statement released by the network, Charlie Collier, president of AMC, SundanceTV and AMC Studios, lauded the success of the show, as well as its creators:
What Dave Erickson and Robert Kirkman have invented in Fear The Walking Dead is to be applauded. Watching Los Angeles crumble through the eyes of our characters and seeing each make decisions and try to figure out the rules of their new world – it’s fresh, eerie and compelling and we’re all in for the ride. “As Victor Strand observed, ‘The only way to survive a mad world is to embrace the madness.’ We thank the millions of fans for embracing this mad world and look forward to sailing far into the future.
Fear The Walking Dead is currently the second-highest-rated series on cable television. The show airs Sunday nights at 9 p.m. EST on AMC.