Summary
- Lead actor Bryan Cranston believes it is time to let the Breaking Bad franchise rest.
- Breaking Bad has remained in the public consciousness over a decade after its conclusion.
- Creator Vince Gilligan is open to the possibility of future Breaking Bad stories, but wants to leave it be for now.
The universe built around the Emmy-winning series Breaking Bad looks to have finally come to an end with the conclusion of Better Call Saul. Now lead actor Bryan Cranston has shared his thoughts on the future of the franchise, and suggested that perhaps it is time to allow the series to rest.
Incredibly, Breaking Bad originally debuted in 2008, with Cranston taking on the role of teacher-turned-drug lord Walter White. Despite reaching a conclusion after five seasons in 2013, the series spawned a sequel in El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie, which followed Aaron Paul’s character of Jesse Pinkman, and then the six-season run of prequel series Better Call Saul, with Bob Odenkirk’s shady lawyer stepping into the spotlight. All of this, as well as surprising revivals for sketches and Super Bowl ads, has ensured that Breaking Bad has remained in the public consciousness over a decade after the show ended.
Now, despite there still being an appetite for more stories from Walter White’s world, Cranston himself recently told Entertainment Tonight that he believes it is time to “let it go.” He said:
Everything should come to an end. Everything’s cyclical. Our lives are cyclical. The seasons, trees, everything. And, so, it’s okay to have a beginning, middle, and end, and then let it go. I’m proud of what we did.
Related Breaking Bad Unveils an Alternate Ending That Could Have Reshaped Its Legacy Breaking Bad had an uncharted finale that could alter its final season.
Will There Be Another Breaking Bad Spin-Off?
AMC
Breaking Bad is considered one of the greatest television shows ever made. With almost perfect critics and audience scores, the ending of the show delivered an ending that, uncommonly, didn’t ruin what had come before. Following the release of El Camino on Netflix, focus fell on Better Call Saul to pick up the mantle and keep the universe alive. Despite not getting the credit it deserved in awards terms, Bob Odenkirk’s reprisal of his role as Jimmy McGill/Saul Goodman was hugely successful, weaving together a story that ended up crossing over with that of Breaking Bad as it reached a conclusion.
Although creator Vince Gilligan has been reluctant to revisit the Breaking Bad universe again, despite there being a rumor that Giancarlo Esposito’s Gus Fring could be in line for the prequel spin-off treatment, he has not entirely ruled it out. It all seems to depend on how well his new projects do. He previously noted:
“To be brutally honest, if I get my ass handed to me with this next show and the one after that, and nobody wants to see it and everybody wants Breaking Bad, who knows! Maybe we’ll see our way clearer to doing something in the future, but what I’d like to do is leave it be. I kind of wonder if there are further stories to tell, but I don’t want to beat a dead horse. I look around and see other storytelling worlds — I’m not going to name names — that feel like, ‘Boy, they are really sucking that last dime out of that franchise.'”
As Cranston poignantly puts it, “Everything should come to an end.” There are many TV shows that just don’t know when that time has come. With Breaking Bad already having succeeded in delivering a worthy sequel and prequel, would it be worth risking it all going wrong by pushing for more? For now, it appears that common sense is prevailing, and Breaking Bad can be enjoyed in its existing form.
The Breaking Bad universe is currently available to stream on Netflix.
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