The Walking Dead: Full Cast Announced For New Spin-Off Series

The Walking Dead franchise is expanding with a third series at AMC, the full cast for which was announced during San Diego Comic-Con on Friday, July 19.

Per The Hollywood Reporter, the second Walking Dead spin-off and the third show under the overall property umbrella will feature Aliyah Royale (The Red Line) as Iris, Annet Mahendru (The Americans) as Huck, Alexa Mansour (The Resident) as Hope, Nicolas Cantu (The Amazing World of Gumball) as Elton, and Hal Cumpston (Bilched) as Silas. Looper previously reported on Mansour's, Cantu's, and Cumpston's castings.

Details about the series regular's characters were kept under tight wraps (there's only so much that AMC could reveal at its Comic-Con outing), though we know that the individuals make up the first generation to enter young adulthood in the Walker-and-Whisperer-filled aftermath of the apocalypse. 

The new Walking Dead series is without a title for the time being, but it has franchise architect Scott M. Gimple (who used to showrun The Walking Dead before handing the reins to Angela Kang) and Matt Negrete (who wrote on the flagship series for years) attached as creators. Kong: Skull Island filmmaker Jordan Vogt-Roberts is on board to direct the series, billed as a 10-episode drama in the vein of Lord of the Flies. (If you know anything at all about Lord of the Flies, you'll understand that there's going to be some intense teen-on-teen violence, god complexes, and power struggles on the upcoming series.)

Gimple opened up about the forthcoming show during the Fear the Walking Dead panel, also held on Friday. 

"Here's a big secret about the Walking Dead universe: all these years we've just seen a tiny sliver of the Walking Dead world. There's a whole lot of world out there. The big secret is that all along, there have been other civilizations that survived the apocalypse," the creative shared. "We saw hints of that in season seven of The Walking Dead and again in 'The End of Everything,' and now we're about to show a lot more of the world in a bunch of different projects."

He continued, "These kids can grow up in a place of comfort and security, but they leave everything on a dangerous quest, and are being pursued by adults on their own. We'll see kids become heroes and some become villains. We're going to open up a whole new world of TWD."

This Walking Dead show is but the first of many zombie-fied projects AMC has brewing. The flagship series and its spin-off Fear the Walking Dead are still alive and kicking (as evidenced by the former's season 10 trailer and the latter's fresh season 6 renewal), and AMC just teamed with Universal Pictures to bring to theaters the first in a trio of Walking Dead movies top-lined by Andrew Lincoln's Rick Grimes. Gimple has been vocal about his plans to keep the property thriving for years — and he's making it happen with this new show.

Following the full cast announcement, things will move swiftly for the third Walking Dead series. Filming is scheduled to start next week in time to debut on AMC in 2020.