We’ve talked about Vince Gilligan’s proposed idea for a Breaking Bad spin-off based on Bob Odenkirk’s sleazebag lawyer on several occasions, but honestly, it’s mostly been speculative. Vince Gilligan was interested in doing it, and Bob Odenkirk was open to bringing back the character, but it always felt like one of those “Wouldn’t that be cool?” kind of ideas, like a sequel to Serenity or sentient sex robots.
However, more and more, it is sounding like a real possibility. FX hasn’t picked it up or anything (not that they wouldn’t), but according to Gilligan (via The Wrap), development is “full-speed ahead.” Gilligan and Peter Gould (the writer who developed Saul Goodman) are actually working out the smaller details now.
For instance, Gilligan is co-developing the show with Gould, and says that once it is running, Gould would take over as showrunner. The bigger details right now are whether it’s a half hour or hour show, or a sequel or a prequel. Gilligan addressed both of those issues in the interview.
On the half-hour/hour debate:
There’s a way to do both versions of the show. There’s a way to make it a half-hour show and make it a little more — I don’t want to say sitcom-y, but a little more traditionally half-hour comedic. Or there’s a way to do it where it fits more snuggly in with the “Breaking Bad” universe, in which it’s an hour-long show. As you can imagine with Saul Goodman as a character, a show like that would have to have plenty of humor to it. But also because he works for some pretty scary clientele sometimes, there’d be a bit of drama in it as well. We’re trying to nail that down. As of yet, we haven’t completely figured that out ourselves.
On the prequel/sequel debate:
Those are the two big questions we ask ourselves — is it a half hour or an hour, is it a prequel or a sequel? But having said that, I have to be coy as to whether it even could be a sequel. Because you never know, when the dust settles at the end of our final eight episodes, where everybody’s gonna be and who’s gonna be left standing. I can’t even say for sure that it could be a sequel. It may be, it may not.
Gilligan even says that, if they go the prequel route, he would “jump at the opportunity” to bring Giancarlo Espisoto’s Gus Fring back. That would presumably mean that Jonathan Banks’ Mike Ehrmentraut might also be in the mix, and how fun would it be to see even a brief cameo from a pre-Heisenberg, pre-cancer Walter White shuffling through the grocery story with his family, their whole typical suburban lives ahead of them?
The point is: I think this may actually happen, and according to Gilligan, he’s not working on anything else right now except the Saul Goodman spin-off. To sum: IT’S DEFINITELY GOING TO HAPPEN. Probably.
(Source: The Wrap. Image: SaulGMan’s Twitter)
