Vince Gilligan says the new series is back in production.
Vince Gilligan, the creator of Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul is leaving the Albuquerque world of methamphetamine and crime for an entirely new project on Apple TV+—but he is taking his Saul star Rhea Seehorn with him, and he’s revealed he’s getting back to work on it very soon. The “mild science-fiction story”, also set in Albuquerque, is designed as a palate cleanser for Gilligan and it’s one he’s thrilled to be starting.
Speaking with Variety, Gilligan offered a lengthy update on the progress of his Better Call Saul follow-up which will bring Seehorn into a leading role that she has long deserved, adding that the conclusion of the Writers Guild of America strike will allow his process to continue.
“We’re back to work,” said Gilligan. “We’re officially back in the writers room on Monday. I’m spending most of my time in New Mexico, because I live here now. But when I go back [to Los Angeles], we’re going to reopen the writers room for the first couple of weeks in person. When the strike hit, we were very close to the end of breaking the first season.”
A Loss of Momentum
Admitting that the writing team had lost a lot of momentum, Gilligan believes it may take some extra time to get back up to speed so they may take some steps backwards to retrace and build once more to the conclusion of the series, which is almost finished on the page.
So we’re going to go back and finish the second-to-last episode and then get to work on the last episode. We lost a lot of momentum, certainly. I can’t even remember where we were exactly. So I’m going to be spending this week reading through previous episodes and old notes to figure out where we stand. We’re looking forward to getting back to work. We would have been shooting already if it weren’t for the strike. The strike was a sad necessity, and we’re all glad that it’s behind us. I’m a little sorry that we’ll be in the teeth of winter here in Albuquerque when we finally do shoot. So that’s not going to be fun — it’ll be way below freezing and it’s supposed to be a rainy winter here, too.
Seehorn’s performance as Kim Wexler was iconic, and undoubtedly not met with as much notice from awards bodies as it should have been. However, Gilligan believes this “very different” character will perhaps prove polarising, as he confesses that he’s nervous to see how viewers react.
Rhea will be playing a very different character than she played on “Saul.” The weird thing is that it takes place in Albuquerque, except it’s a whole different world. There’s no overlap that I can see. She’s playing a character who is not Kim Wexler, but hopefully people will roll with that. I’m nervous. It’ll be interesting to see how folks react to it.
Collider will have more information on Vince Gilligan’s follow-up to the Breaking Bad world as and when it becomes available.
