AMC Renews Blades’ “Fear the Walking Dead” for a Third Season

There’s more fear in Ruben Blades’ future…

Less than a week after its second season premiere, Fear the Walking Dead, starring the 67-year-old Panamanian actor/singer, has been picked up for a third season by AMC.

Ruben Blades

The 16-episode run of the Robert Kirkman and Dave Erickson created spinofff of blockbuster The Walking Dead will debut in 2017.

“What Dave Erickson and Robert Kirkman have invented in Fear The Walking Dead is to be applauded,” said Charlie Collier, president of AMC, SundanceTV and AMC Studios. “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.”

Now on the high seas, FearTWD returned on April 10 for a 15-episode season two run basically even in Live + Same Day numbers with its October 4 S1 finale of last year.

While down 37% in the key 18-49 demo from the record-breaking cable highs of its August 23, 2015 Season 1 premiere FearTWD S2’s opener also declined 34% in total viewers from its very first show.

Despite those declines, the spinoff is still the second highest rated show on cable this season in the 18-49s – behind only TWD itself. On both broadcast and cable, FearTWD is the seventh highest rated show, including Sunday Night Football, this season so far.

In just released Live + 3 numbers, FearTWD’s S2 opener rose 32% in total viewers from its L+SD results to 8.8 million. Among adults 18-49, the Erickson written ‘Monster” episode was up 36% from L+SD to 5.3 million.

Lopez’s Police Drama “Shades of Blue” to Premiere in January on NBC

Jennifer Lopez will be feeling blue in January…

NBC has announced the premiere date for Shades of Blue, starring the 46-year-old Puerto Rican singer, actress and American Idol judge.

Jennifer Lopez 

The straight-to-series police drama, which also stars Ray Liotta, will debut on Thursday, January 14 at 9:00 pm with a two-hour premiere episode directed by Barry Levinson.

The show will then move to its regular 10:00 pm timeslot behind The Blacklist the following Thursday, January 21.

There, Shades Of Blue will succeed new fall drama The Player.

“From a marketing perspective, the January 14 date takes advantage of both solid Sunday Night Football games and strong holiday programming through the first week of January,” is how NBC’s head of scheduling Jeff Bader explains the rationale behind the premiere date choice. “Also, in one of the most-watched weekends of the year (January 9-10), we have the NFL Wild Card game and Golden Globes, both of which make for great promotional opportunities.”

Shades of Blue 

Shades Of Blue centers on Harlee Santos (Lopez), a charismatic single mother and resourceful detective at the heart of a tight-knit crew of Brooklyn detectives, led by enigmatic Lt. Matt Wozniak (Liotta) who often leads the team to step outside the limitations of the law in order to effectively protect their precinct and their own. As a big illegal job looms on the horizon, the FBI catches Harlee in the act and pits her against her own unit. As a newly turned informant, Harlee struggles to safeguard her on-the-job family and avoid arrest in order to stay with her daughter.

The series co-stars Warren Kole, Drea de Matteo, Dayo Okeniyi, Vincent Laresca, Hampton Fluker and Sarah Jeffery.

It is executive produced by Jack Orman, Adi Hasak, Lopez, Elaine Goldsmith-Thomas, Benny Medina, Ryan Seacrest and Nina Wass.