Vince Gilligan Moves Forward With Breaking Bad Spin-Off Series

[GreenL420]

It was recently reported that Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan was looking to develop a spin-off series that focuses on the character Saul Goodman. In a recent interview with The Wrap he revealed that he's moving forward with developing the series "full speed ahead!" He's currently working on it with writer Peter Gould, who came up with the character in the second season of Breaking Bad.

The series isn't a sure thing at this point as the writing team hasn't even pitched it to the studio or network yet. But, as of right now it's the only post-Breaking Bad project he's working on. They are in the process of working out the details of the series, such as whether it will be a prequel or a sequel. Gilligan says there's still no guarantee that Goodman will survive the end of Breaking Bad.

Here's the Q&A that went down between Gilligan and The Wrap:

Can you talk about the status of the possible spinoff?

Vince Gilligan: All my writers are wonderful writers. And they're all ready to run their own shows. In this particular case, since Peter created the character, it felt more than right to be working with him on this, and we are plugging away coming up with a pitch and a take on it for the network and studio and hopefully everyone will agree that there's a really fun show to be had here. And hopefully we'll get it up and running, and then Peter will run it. I'd love to see that happen.

It's not a done deal yet, but it's definitely something we're full speed ahead on trying to get going.

Will it be a half hour or an hour?

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.

Any decision on whether it's a prequel or the further adventures of Saul?

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.

To read more about Giancarlo Esposito's possibly involvement with the series click here. Esposito played Gus Fring in Breaking Bad.

Do you think a Saul Goodman series could be a hit with fans?

[coughdrops]

"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. "

I say do it like the X-files spin-off, 'The Lone Gunman'. Only without the sappiness.