Before FX became FX: The Home of Archer, Justified, Louie, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, and Wilfred, they were FX: The Home of It’s Always Sunny and a Bunch of Moody, Dark Dramas Like Rescue Me, The Shield, and Nip/Tuck. Wary of being labeled as “y’know, that channel with all those, whatcha call ’em, angry white guys,” FX president John Landgraf turned down a project featuring THE angry white guy: Breaking Bad.
In an interview with Kim Masters on KCRW’s The Business, FX president John Landgraf explained why he turned down the show, which would later become a critical and commercial hit for AMC.
“We had three dramas with male antiheroes and we looked at that script and said, ‘Okay, so here’s a fourth male antihero,’” Landgraf recalled. “The question was: ‘Are we defining FX as the male antihero network and is that a big enough tent?’” (Via)
It’s nice to know that FX is in such a good place that its president can explain why he passed on the greatest televised drama of all-time — you wouldn’t hear a network head from Hallmark say, “We could have had Girls, but we decided to air reruns of Little House on the Prairie, instead.” But let’s imagine if Breaking Bad was on FX. There could be a crossover episode with Anger Management, and Walter White could push Tio and his rigged-with-explosives wheelchair into Charlie Sheen’s house, bombing the place to smithereens. If only.
