With Better Call Saul now ended, attention turns to Bob Odenkirk’s new role in the upcoming series Straight Man. The Better Call Saul finale marked Odenkirk’s final performance as the criminal lawyer Saul Goodman/Jimmy McGill, a role that he’s played for over a decade. It won’t be hard for the actor to move on from the role, however, as he already has several new projects lined up.
Work continues on the sequel to Odenkirk’s Nobody, an action movie that once more proved the extent of the actor’s talents. While it can often be hard for performers to move on from iconic roles, Bob Odenkirk’s background as a sketch-comic, screenwriter, director, and producer will ensure that he’ll have no such trouble in moving on from Saul Goodman. AMC, the network that broadcast both Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul is keen to continue working with Bob Odenkirk, and have commissioned his next show, Straight Man for 2023.
Bob Odenkirk’s Straight Man is AMC’s second confirmed project for a Breaking Bad/Better Call Saul alumnus, with Giancarlo Esposito due to star in the US adaptation of the British crime drama The Driver. Breaking Bad/Better Call Saul creator Vince Gilligan is also working on a new show to pitch to networks, but it remains to be seen if AMC will sign on for the showrunner’s new project. Straight Man was greenlit by AMC just over two weeks after the network announced its development, here’s everything currently known about Bob Odenkirk’s Better Call Saul follow-up.
Everything We Know About Straight Man
Straight Man marks the third collaboration between Bob Odenkirk and AMC. It’s based on the 1997 novel by Richard Russo and has been described as a midlife crisis comedy-drama set in the English department of a Pennsylvania college. Bob Odenkirk will play Henry Devereaux Jr. a 50-something former novelist, who has to contend with departmental cutbacks and his own family issues. The synopsis of the novel states that Henry “fails to see the larger consequences of his own actions,” a critique that could also be leveled at Better Call Saul‘s Jimmy McGill. Bob Odenkirk has spoken of Straight Man‘s similar blend of comedy and drama, and is excited by AMC’s continued focus on nuanced and complicated characters.
Richard Russo’s novel has been adapted by Aaron Zelman, who was a supervising producer on HBO’s Silicon Valley, and Paul Lieberstein, best known for playing Toby in The Office, in which Bob Odenkirk cameoed. Straight Man season 1 will consist of eight one-hour episodes to be broadcast in 2023 and will be directed by legendary comedy director Peter Farrelly. As well as starring in the show, Bob Odenkirk will also executive-produce Straight Man alongside his wife, the producer and talent agent Naomi Odenkirk and former Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul executive producer Mark Johnson.
With such impressive talent in front and behind the camera, Straight Man should be a highly-anticipated show for AMC in 2023. With Better Call Saul now ended, and The Walking Dead due to end later in 2022, the network will be keen to produce new shows to continue its legacy of prestige drama. Straight Man, Bob Odenkirk’s new comedy-drama about a flawed and unlikely English professor should serve as the perfect spiritual successor to his iconic role in Better Call Saul as a flawed and unlikely attorney.