‘Better Call Saul’ Details Released: Series Set Six Years Before ‘Breaking Bad’

All the details you could possibly want to know about the upcoming ‘Breaking Bad’ prequel — Better Call Saul….

The upcoming prequel to ‘Breaking Bad’ titled ‘Better Call Saul’ won’t premiere until 2015, but the show has already been renewed for two full seasons on AMC and thanks to a recent update from show creators Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould there are a lot more details available for the series.

— The series is set in 2002, six years before Saul Goodman meets Walter White for the first time. The series — much like Breaking Bad — will have time jumps, however, and won’t necessarily just stay set in 2002. That means characters from the past or future could appear depending on what the story dictates.

— Saul Goodman isn’t Saul Goodman when we meet him. “The man who will become Saul Goodman is known as Jimmy McGill, a small-time lawyer searching for his destiny, and, more immediately, hustling to make ends meet.”

— Past characters may appear in the future but in the beginning the only familiar face outside of Saul (played by Bob Odenkirk) will be “fixer” Mike Erhmantraut (played once again by Breaking Bad favorite Jonathan Banks). The creators of the show haven’t ruled out other characters like Walter White or Jesse Pinkman from appearing at some point, but through the first half of the debut season, none of them have shown up as of yet.

The goal is to make ‘Better Call Saul’ a stand-alone show and not a throwback get together of all the characters from ‘Breaking Bad’.

— The series is dark and dramatic with some tones of humor thrown in as well. Odenkirk told us a few months ago while filming his role in ‘Fargo’ that he expected ‘Better Call Saul’ to be much darker than people might expect from a character that was often the comic relief of ‘Breaking Bad’ in many ways.

— Michael McKean will play Saul’s brother in the new show.

— There are 23 guaranteed episodes of ‘Better Call Saul’ — Breaking Bad creator and showrunner Vince Gilligan directed the first episode of the series, which has already been greenlit for a second season of 13 episodes. The debut season will consist of 10 episodes.

— The rest of the main cast outside of Odenkirk includes: Jonathan Banks (Breaking Bad, Wiseguy) as “fixer” Mike Erhmantraut, McKean (This is Spinal Tap) as Chuck, Rhea Seehorn (Franklin & Bash, House of Lies) as Kim, Patrick Fabian (Big Love, Grey’s Anatomy) as Hamlin, and Michael Mando (Orphan Black, The Killing) as Nacho — characters that will represent both legitimate and illegitimate sides of the law.

With filming underway, expect an early 2015 debut date from ‘Better Call Saul’ on AMC.