For those of you who are experience great anxiety as we near the end of Breaking Bad, I have some very, very exciting news for you. After the AMC staple concludes, one of its most memorable characters will live on. That’s right, I’m talking about the one and only Saul Goodman. Walter White’s fast-talking lawyer and absolute scene-stealer is getting his very own spinoff series imagined by Breaking Bad mastermind Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould, the man who invented the sly comic relief character.
Perhaps the aforementioned phrase “live on” isn’t so appropriate here. Goodman very well may die a bloody death before the series comes to a close and yet the spinoff will remain in tact. Are you connecting the dots here? The spinoff is a prequel series meaning it will take place before Goodman was even acquainted with The One Who Knocks. Tentatively titled Better Call Saul, the prequel spinoff “will focus on the evolution” of the well-connected lawyer. Bob Odenkirk, the comic who currently portrays Goodman, is expected to sign on to reprise the role.
The Goodman spinoff will be a one-hour drama despite its main character being as funny as Odenkirk can be. In an exchange with EW, Gould shares his early vision and tells Breaking Bad fans to expect–what else–the unexpected. “We’re using the kind of storytelling that we did on Breaking Bad but in a really new way. When people think of a Saul Goodman spin-off, they tend to think in terms of a laugh-a-minute comedy, and we’re going for something that has a very very unique tone. To play with a main character who has the unique morality that Saul Goodman does is going to be in its own way as much of an experiment as Breaking Bad was.”
When asked why give someone like Saul Goodman his own series, Gould was quick to answer: “He’s not a character I’ve seen before. So much of Breaking Bad is about playing out ideas of morality and how you live in the world, and this is a guy who has a philosophy which is internally consistent but is also kind of strange. In addition to the fact that he always amuses us and we’re always ready to see more, the guy is a problem solver. He solves problems in his own way. He’s just as innovative as Walt is, so that really gives us a lot of stories and a lot of places to go with him.”
AMC and Sony Pictures Television reached a licensing agreement to make the show, and in time a pilot and/or series order is fully expected to be greenlit. Stay tuned.