Posted on 09/12/2013 12:34:16 PM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum
Breaking Bad may be three episodes away from its bleak-looking end, but the show's universe will live on in spinoff form. After months of negotiations and rumors, AMC and Sony Pictures TV have finally struck a licensing deal for Better Call Saul.
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The heavily-hyped Breaking Bad prequel will focus on the exploits of Saul Goodman, the conniving and resourceful criminal lawyer played by Bob Odenkirk, Deadline reports. The hourlong series, created by Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan and longtime writer-producer Peter Gould, will explore Goodman's "evolution" before meeting up with meth kingpin Walter White.
AMC remains tight-lipped about the show's details, but the series reportedly suffered lengthy contractual complications. Deadline notes that Netflix also expressed interest in picking up the spinoff before the deal eventually closed.
Odenkirk's quick-witted lawyer provides much of the humor on Breaking Bad, and the spinoff is expected to be a bit lighter and more comedic. Back in April, Odenkirk spoke enthusiastically with Vulture about the prospect of a new series.
"Vince is still really busy with the show, so we haven't talked very in-depth about it, but he clearly thinks it's a possibility," he said. "And I've certainly told him that if there was some way to see more of Saul, then I would be happy to do it."
I don’t see it working for long.
Saul is great in small doses but all Saul all the time?
not sure this is a good move.
saul is not a sympathetic character. i don’t really care what made saul, saul. if we’d have gotten some character background within breaking bad and it came for relevant reasons to the storyline, fine.
it smacks of trying to keep a franchise alive.
now what would be a more interesting prequel, if you have to do a prequel, is the storyline of walt and gray matter, of the whole romance thing that went south, what really happened there, losing billions, having a brilliant mind with patents reduced to high school chemistry teaching, etc.
Saul is funny. I could watch his misadventures with various criminal clients.
That’s a great idea. You should write Vince Gilligan. Seriously.
Love, love, LOVE Saul....
I think this has a lot of potential. From what’s been hinted Saul has an interesting back story. He masquerades as a cheap shyster/ ambulance chaser, but he seems to actually be a good lawyer capable of much better things than he’s doing. So there’s an interesting question of how a guy who seems like he could have been a top shelf attorney wound up in a strip mall with a desk drawer full of burner phones with a bunch of phone numbers he’d rather not know.
I predict it will fail. Not that I want to see it fail.
But Saul is not a sympathetic character. Saul was a character that existed as a story mechanism. There was no back-story to Saul because it wasn’t important.
There is no reason to care about Saul. And I don’t care how Saul got to be Saul.
A logical prequel would be called “Grey Matter” and be about the story of Walt BEFORE all this, about what really happened at Grey Matter, about the love triangle thing, about him being (or feeling) screwed, how the whole becoming a lowly science teacher from a lofty patent genius. etc. Also exploring his relationship with his mom vs skylar, and his mom and him, and what all happened there. also how walt dealt with hank being a dick and underestimating/putting him down all those years. “just a smart but goofy naive science guy”
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