Fans are eagerly awaiting AMC’s Breaking Bad spinoff series, Better Call Saul, which features Bob Odenkirk reprising his role as scumbag lawyer Saul Goodman. Even since the announcement that the show would move forward, the assumption has been that the series would be a prequel, taking place before the events of Breaking Bad, but new comments from executive producer Peter Gould tell us otherwise.
Speaking with the NY Daily News, Gould indicated that Better Call Saul would span multiple decades, moving back and forth and potentially featuring characters that appeared in Breaking Bad:
“One of the great things about having a time line which is flexible is that perhaps some of it takes place before ‘Breaking Bad,’ during ‘Breaking Bad,’ and after ‘Breaking Bad’. That gives us the ability to bring back characters that were killed on ‘Breaking Bad.’”
While this opens the door for the return of Walter White, it doesn’t mean that Better Call Saul will be created as a cameo-heavy affair with no depth of its own:
“We want to make a show that stands on it own, is its own story and is a brand extension….We think we have a story that is worth making. … We could never dream of the kind of success that ‘Breaking Bad’ had and the love we got from the fans. But (with ‘Saul’) at a certain point you have to do the best job you can and tell the best story that entertains you, get a good response and hope people like it.”
As we reported previously, AMC has already ordered two seasons of the series, which gives Gould and his team plenty of room to develop characters over a longer span of episodes.
“It’s tremendous for us because we get to plot out two seasons. And the way we work is similar to ‘Breaking Bad’ as it is very serialized and each episode builds on the last. And that gives us a much bigger canvas to play with.”
Better Call Saul is expected to premiere sometimes in 2015, although no official announcements have been made.
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