Zombie Program Could Live With Misleading Title

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A spinoff series to TV’s wildly popular zombie show “The Walking Dead” has been secretly filming in Los Angeles under a fake title.

Prequel “Fear the Walking Dead” was shot under the name “Cobalt” – partly to keep fans and media off the scent but also to prevent price-gouging from suppliers and casual theft of props and other highly prized branded materials.

Disguising the real nature of a major project with a fake title is a ruse increasingly used in blockbuster movies – current smash hit “Jurassic World” had the working title “Ebb Tide” while Batman movie “The Dark Knight” used “Rory’s First Kiss.”

To avoid any undesirable attention during hush-hush production of “Fear the Walking Dead,” the same tactic was employed by channel AMC on the hotly anticipated show, which will start screening next month.

Comic-book adaptation “The Walking Dead” – which is the most-watched cable series of all time, averaging 19.9 million viewers – is shot and set in Georgia. Its storyline started a month after zombies began stalking the living.

This prequel show, with an all-new cast but set in the same universe, will start just before the zombie apocalypse and focus on an L.A. family dealing with the horror of the outbreak as it happens.

Executive producer Robert Kirkman said Los Angeles, rather than rural Georgia, provides the perfect backdrop for the new show, saying in a statement, “It’s got an extremely dense population, so there are a lot of things about that that lend itself well to good storytelling in the zombie apocalypse.”

Spacey Sets Stage

Kevin Spacey’s Trigger Street Productions is behind smash movie hits including “The Social Network” and “Captain Phillips” as well as Netflix series “House of Cards,” but it’s also backing several smaller projects through a short-film contest organized with Jameson Irish Whiskey. It’s a project Spacey said he hopes will launch the next generation of show-business stars.

“If you’ve been successful at the career you wanted to have, it’s your obligation to spend a good proportion of your time sending the elevator back down. Jack Lemmon taught me that,” Spacey said at a recent Paramount Pictures Studios screening of winning films from the Jameson First Shot contest, where he was joined by fellow Oscar winner Adrien Brody, who is helping him mentor the aspiring moviemakers.

Spacey also explained how his L.A. production company got its name.

“When I was growing up in Chatsworth, I had a dream of building a theater at the ranch close to where I lived that had been built and owned by cowboy star Roy Rogers and where he had named a street after his horse, Trigger,” Spacey said. “Even though my theater was never created, when it came time to name my company, Trigger Street felt like something that could go on and on.”

Short Takes

Leading entertainment and sports agency Creative Artists Agency has appointed James Burston chief financial officer. Burston was previously at Time Warner Inc. overseeing that company’s global mergers and acquisitions efforts. … Recently formed Santa Monica comic-book company AfterShock Comics, which filled out its executive team with recruits from Marvel and Facebook, has signed up a string of writers to create its initial slate of comic books, including industry icon Neil Gaiman. … L.A. actress and activist Chastity Dotson, star of BET series “Single Ladies” and Odyssey Theatre play “The False Servant,” has become a tech entrepreneur. She has created a neighborhood-watch mobile app called Zafa designed to bring communities together to protect themselves against civilian violence, campus rapes and police brutality. … Believing virtual reality to be the next great marketing frontier, Culver City marketing agency Create Advertising Group has launched a VR division, with its first project being an immersive experience tied to upcoming TriStar Productions movie “The Walk.” The project will allow users to simulate the experience of a high-wire walk between the Twin Towers in New York, just like the famed 1974 tightrope walk featured in the film, which stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt. … L.A. author Taylor Jenkins Reid has had her novel “Forever Interrupted” optioned for a movie version to star “50 Shades of Grey” actress Dakota Johnson.

Staff reporter Sandro Monetti can be reached at [email protected] or (323) 549-5225, ext 226.

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