Better Call Saul‘s Vince Gilligan and Rhea Seehorn land two-season new show at Apple
Better Call Saul team Vince Gilligan and Rhea Seehorn are setting up a new show together at AppleTV Plus
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Apple just landed one of the most instantly-anticipated new TV projects in recent memory today, as Deadline reports that the tech giant has scored a two-season deal for a new show from Vince Gilligan and Better Call Saul star Rhea Seehorn. It’s a direct-to-series order, too—no screwing around with pilots or waiting-and-seeing on test footage, because, well: Vince Gilligan and Rhea Seehorn!
Details about the series are, of course, pretty much nil at this point, beyond a very basic logline that it’ll be a “blended, grounded genre drama.” (There’s also been some suggestion that it might be veering into some measure of sci-fi or alternate reality; Deadline mentions Twilight Zone as a possible tonal reference.) But it’s really not hard to see why an immediate bidding war erupted basically the minute Gilligan started floating his Better Call Saul follow-up last month; the former X-Files producer now has not just one, but two massive critical and ratings hits under his belt, between Saul and its predecessor Breaking Bad. Meanwhile, Seehorn—who has a long acting resumé, but who exploded into the spotlight with her endlessly fascinating performance as Saul’s Kim Wexler—is fresh off two nominations at this year’s Emmy’s, and is at one of those career moments where the whole industry is pretty much watching to see what she tackles next.
AppleTV+ reportedly pursued the project aggressively—hence the multi-year order—beating out a reported 8 or 9 other streamers and cable networks hoping to get a bite at Gilligan’s project (still being produced at his long-time home at Sony Pictures Television). Deadline notes that Gilligan was apparently asking for pretty hefty budgets for the show, too, reportedly naming $13.5 – $15 million per episode.
Gilligan issued a statement today, lavishing Seehorn with praise, as one does: “After 15 years, I figured it was time to take a break from writing antiheroes… and who’s more heroic than the brilliant Rhea Seehorn? It’s long past time she had her own show, and I feel lucky to get to work on it with her.”
35 Comments
Apple+ has been putting out some terrific content. Probably my favourite streaming service in terms of overall quality, which is not something I would’ve expected when they first started out.
Pretty wild that we are now at the point where Apple+ is pretty good and HBO is being made fun of any time it is mentioned (though I guess in HBO’s defense, it isn’t a quality thing as much as a corporate decision).
Hey, another show she can not win Emmys for! Was that a good sentence? Hey! Another show for which she can not win Emmys! Paging Volunteer Proofreader.
That’s such a great moment. B&BDA was really a lot more clever than it should have been.
I miss Robert Stack.
I just hear his voice and the theme to Unsolved Mysteries will play on an endless loop in my head.
Ending a sentence with a preposition is something up with which I will not put!
She can for another show not win Emmys, hey?
Hey! Another show for which she’ll get stiffed out of an Emmy.FTFY
Hey AVC, check out the proper way to pluralize “Emmy” while you’re at it. NB: it’s not with an apostrophe.
Ending a sentence with a preposition is something up with which I will not put
Must have been the easiest layup for whichever Apple exec made this happen.Gilligan: Hey, I’d like to make a show-Apple *hands over check with lots of zeroes on it* Sounds great!Gilligan: -with Rhea-Apple *grabs check, adds another zero*
Vince Gilligan: “Hey, idiot, could you put some numbers besides zeroes on here too?”.
Just know that I’m starting a slow clap right now.
Could you pick it up a bit? I got shit to do today.
Better Call Saul was the last show I was looking forward to. Good for them that they’re making another series, but even that wouldn’t get me to subscribe to Apple.
Nice. I’ll watch that.
Well. I’ll pirate it. Apple already got enough money from me.
Most people would probably try to de-emphasize the chicken leg in publicity photos, but not my man Gilligan. Gilligan is just like, ‘I gots me chicken. I gots me drank. I gots Rhea Seehorn. Me life is very dank.’.
I believe that’s a wing, not a leg, and I only point this out to you because your family would expect you to know better…
I believe the proper term for that portion of the wing is “drumlette.”
I’ve heard it as “drummette”, no “L”.
I’ve only ever heard “Drummie” or just “Drum.” On the bird, these connect to the “Flat”, which I believe I’ve also heard referred to as “Flappers” on occasion.Since you all asked, I order all flats, naked (if they are usually served breaded), extra crispy, with blue cheese dressing on the side. (Mmmmm, Homer drool)
As a 19th generation “Defiler of Fowl”, I can tell you with absolute certainty, that’s a duck antennae.
yah pass if it’s on AppleTVPlus unless whenever AppleTVPlus drops another oscar contender ala Coda and I sign up for a month and try to binge watch this too for that time. Stop selling out to AppleTV+ Hollywood folks, sell out to a streamer like Netflix or Amazon Prime which people actually have. This is how you get a Quibi and nobody wants that!
This is how you get a Quibi and nobody wants that!Apple, the richest tech company in the entire world, has just landed a second consecutive Emmy win for their most popular show, the streaming exclusive Ted Lasso. This is not how you get a Quibi.
Apple bringin’ back Fierce Queens when?
what did Stack just say to Bork?!?!?!
I haven’t subscribed to Apple+, because it doesn’t offer as much content as Netflix or Hulu for the same price. That said, the average quality of their originals is probably best in class.Quibi was Youtube, but you have to pay. You really shouldn’t compare it to a legitimate service.
I got 3 free months from AppleTV+ via PS4, frankly the whole thing seems designed to only work seamlessly with Apple products. You know how you resume watching on a mobile android device? It’s super annoying (logging into the website via the mobile web browser which is not user friendly) because they don’t make an Android app unlike every other streaming service everywhere. I don’t think it’s a good business model, or at least one I am going to support, if a whole streaming service is mainly designed to be watched on Apple products like iPhones and AppleTVs. CODA was nice to watch for free though. Got it in the week before the Oscars too.
Counterpoint: literally everything I’ve watched on AppleTV+ has been good. They definitely have the quality over quantity issue solved.
I can’t think of any sci-fi stories that could possibly be set in New Mexico.
Off topic! But I need to know Rhea Seehorn’s skincare routine. I can’t believe she is 50. When I first started watching the BCS I thought they hired someone way too young for Bob Odenkirk but he is only 9 years older which makes sense for when and how they went to law school but wow.
That’s honestly one of the wild things about her career, for me: you always hear about actresses seeing their careers tank once they hit her age, and meanwhile, hers is the complete opposite story: she’s doing the Alan Rickman, when she sees her star go supernova. It’s awesome, and weirdly feels almost a little groundbreaking? Obviously it helps that she looks 10+ years younger than she is, but it’s still great to see, especially since she is SO FUCKING GOOD.
I was told all Apple shows get a minimum 3 seasons regardless of popularity because Apple won’t admit defeat. Any truth to that?