Conception , a character created for
Breaking Bad. The character of
Saul Goodman first appeared during
Breaking Bads
second season, in an episode that was also titled "
Better Call Saul". The character was originally intended to appear in only four episodes, but soon became much more developed than the staff had planned. He would eventually stay on the series and become central to its narrative. As
Breaking Bad continued its run, the character grew in popularity with the audience. Odenkirk speculated this was because he is "the program's least hypocritical figure", and "is good at his job".
Vince Gilligan, who created and developed
Breaking Bad, and
Peter Gould, who wrote the episode with Goodman's first appearance, considered a Saul Goodman spinoff as early as 2009. Gould noted that over the course of
Breaking Bad, there were several "what ifs” their team considered, such as if the show won a
Primetime Emmy Award, or if people would buy "
Los Pollos Hermanos" T-shirts. The staff did not expect these events to come to fruition, but after they did, they started considering a spin-off featuring Saul as a thought experiment. With the growth of Saul's character, the writers saw ways to explore the character further. While filming the
Breaking Bad episode "
Full Measure", Gilligan asked Odenkirk his thoughts on a spinoff.
Development In April 2013,
Better Call Saul was confirmed to be in development by Gilligan and Gould. In July 2013, before the
second half of Breaking Bads final season aired, Gilligan said he and Gould were still working out ideas for the spin-off, but a deal had not yet been made.
Netflix was one of many interested distributors, but ultimately a deal was made between AMC and the
Breaking Bad production company
Sony Pictures Television. As Sony and AMC began to commit to a spinoff, Gilligan and Gould worked on what it would be about. They initially considered making it a half-hour show where Saul would see various clients – celebrities in guest roles – in his strip mall office, similarly to
Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist, but they had no idea how to write for this type of format. They eventually fell back to planning for hour-long episodes. Gilligan described
Breaking Bad as being "25-percent humor, 75-percent drama", and speculated that they would reverse that for
Better Call Saul. While the intent was to add more humor, the show remained heavy with dramatic elements, with Odenkirk calling the
first season "85 percent drama, 15 percent comedy." Gould called the comedic element of
Better Call Saul and its predecessor
Breaking Bad the "secret sauce" to both series, saying that it made their dramatic elements stronger and vice versa. Gilligan and Gould initially believed that Saul Goodman was insufficient to carry the show by himself, with Gilligan thinking the character was "great flavoring" for a show but not the substance. Eventually they came to realize that Saul, in the
Breaking Bad timeframe, was a man who had come to accept himself, and recognized the potential of telling the story of how Saul got to be that person.
Writing Gilligan and Gould began as co-
showrunners for the series. Former
Breaking Bad writers
Thomas Schnauz and
Gennifer Hutchison joined the writing staff, with Schnauz serving as co-executive producer and Hutchison as supervising producer. Also joining the initial writing staff were
Bradley Paul and former
Breaking Bad writer's assistant
Gordon Smith. In writing for
Better Call Saul, Gilligan and Gould recognized they were including overlaps with
Breaking Bad, and had ideas of characters that they would include, such as
Gus Fring, though without a set timetable in the show's development. Gilligan described the writing approach as like developing two separate shows, one centered on Jimmy/Saul, Kim, Chuck, and Howard and a second on the more familiar
Breaking Bad characters like Mike and Gus. As the show continued, the show's "brain trust", consisting of script coordinators Ariel Levine and Kathleen Williams-Foshee, reviewed each script to help maintain the continuity with
Breaking Bad, including tracking minor character traits and ensuring small details from the previous show were kept correct. Gilligan left the
Better Call Saul writing staff early in the
third season to focus on other projects, resulting in Gould becoming sole showrunner. This transition had been planned since the show's debut. Upon his departure, Gilligan expressed desire to return to the writers' room during the show's final season. He remained involved in the
fourth and
fifth seasons, but had little to do with developing the show's content during this period. Instead, Gilligan reduced his role to "director for hire", directing an episode during each season when he was not on the writing staff. Gilligan went on to laud Gould for maintaining
Better Call Sauls high quality, stating the series continued to improve even after he left. Gould brought Gilligan back to the writers' room for the
sixth and final season, calling it "wonderful to have him there, so we can finish this show that we started together."
Casting Starring cast ,
Rhea Seehorn,
Patrick Fabian,
Michael Mando and
Giancarlo Esposito.
Bob Odenkirk confirmed he would reprise Saul Goodman in the starring role when the series was first announced, but his character would be introduced as lawyer
Jimmy McGill. New cast members included
Michael McKean as McGill's elder brother
Chuck McGill. McKean previously guest-starred in an episode of Odenkirk's
Mr. Show and Gilligan's
X-Files episode "
Dreamland".
Rhea Seehorn auditioned and got the role of
Kimberly "Kim" Wexler in April 2014, her character being described as "prestigious attorney ... whose hard life is complicated by her romantic entanglements with somebody else at the firm". In May 2014,
Patrick Fabian was cast on the show as
Howard Hamlin, a "
Kennedy-esque lawyer who's winning at life". After impressing Gilligan and Gould with his audition tape and screen test,
Michael Mando was cast as the "smart and calculating criminal"
Ignacio "Nacho" Varga. Mando's character had been previously mentioned but not seen in the
Breaking Bad episode "
Better Call Saul". Going into the third season,
Giancarlo Esposito was added to the main cast as
Gus Fring, a drug kingpin who previously served as one of
Breaking Bads main antagonists. Esposito was previously a starring cast member in
Breaking Bad for the same role. McKean left the series at season's end due to his character being written out, but made appearances in the fourth and sixth seasons.
Tony Dalton made his first appearance as
Lalo Salamanca in the fourth season, and was promoted to the main cast for the fifth. Like Nacho, Lalo had been a character mentioned only by name in the same
Breaking Bad episode "Better Call Saul". By the next season, Gilligan said that the show had been on long enough that any reuse of
Breaking Bad characters would require more than "just a cameo or an
Alfred Hitchcock walkthrough", and that their appearances would need to be essential to the story. Both eventually appeared in the final season.
Dean Norris, a
Breaking Bad starring cast member who portrayed
Hank Schrader, stated that he could not be part of
Better Call Saul in the beginning due to his involvement in the
CBS series
Under the Dome. However, he was able to reprise his role as a guest star in the fifth season. Plans were initially made for
Betsy Brandt to reprise her role as Hank's wife
Marie Schrader in a cameo in the second season, but the writer's room objected, considering the idea to be distracting for audiences. Brandt eventually reprised the role in the final season. Other
Breaking Bad cast members spoke of the potential of being on
Better Call Saul. Before the series began,
Anna Gunn mentioned a talk with Gilligan over possible guest appearances as
Skyler White.
Bill Burr was set to return as
Patrick Kuby in the fifth season, but scheduling fell through due to him needing to attend to a personal matter. After the series ended, Gould mentioned his desire to bring back all of the remaining
Breaking Bad characters for the finale, but he and the writing staff could not find a proper way to have them fit into the story.
Filming Like its predecessor,
Better Call Saul is set in and around
Albuquerque, New Mexico, with filming primarily taking place at
Albuquerque Studios.
Principal photography for the show's six seasons took place from June 2, 2014, to February 9, 2022. Gilligan directed the series premiere, and Gould directed the series finale. Additional filming was done in March 2022, after principal photography for the series ended, for the opening teaser of the season six episode "
Point and Shoot". With several crew members but no cast members on hand, the scene was filmed in
Leo Carrillo State Beach, California. This was the only time the series was filmed outside of New Mexico. Notable exterior locations include the Twisters restaurant used previously in
Breaking Bad for Gus's Los Pollos Hermanos, a parking lot kiosk at the
Albuquerque Convention Center for where Mike worked in the first few seasons, the Old Bernalillo County Courthouse as the local courthouse, and two nearby office buildings in the North Valley, including
Northrop Grumman's, that collectively are used for the HHM office spaces. Jimmy's back office is located in an actual nail salon, which the producers accommodated by working with the owners. The Salamanca's restaurant is a real business in the South Valley that production modified slightly for the show, but which otherwise remained open. The scenes set in Omaha are filmed at
Cottonwood Mall in Albuquerque; production worked with
Cinnabon to bring in the period-specific equipment and service items for the segments, and the extras in the store during these scenes are Cinnabon employees. Filming an episode of
Better Call Saul typically took nine days. However, in the aftermath of the
COVID-19 pandemic, each episode would be given an elongated three-week shooting schedule for the final season. Cast members Odenkirk, Seehorn and Fabian would share living arrangements during principal photography some time after the first season, in an Albuquerque house owned by Odenkirk and his wife. Odenkirk stated that this was for the actors to keep each other company after filming had finished for the day, as he had lived by himself during the first season and felt a sense of loneliness when he was home. Other recurring character actors such as
Josh Fadem would stay at that house when it came time to film their scenes in Albuquerque. Notably, the opening episode for the first five seasons started with a black-and-white flash-forward to a period in the years after the finale of
Breaking Bad. Here, Saul has been relocated to Omaha, Nebraska, as "Gene", a manager of a Cinnabon store, and remains paranoid about anyone discovering his past identity. This was foreshadowed in the penultimate episode of
Breaking Bad, "
Granite State", in which Saul tells Walter: "If I'm lucky, a month from now, best-case scenario, I'm managing a Cinnabon in Omaha." The show's
director of photography was
Arthur Albert for the first two seasons, and Marshall Adams starting with season 3. Additionally, Paul Donachie served as a cinematographer on episodes "
Namaste" (2020), "
Carrot and Stick" (2022) and "
Hit and Run" (2022). Seasons 1 and 2 were filmed mainly on
RED Dragon cameras. Starting with season 3,
Panasonic VariCam Pure were incorporated due to their extra low-light sensitivity. This allowed the crew to shoot extra wide exterior shots at night as well as during the day, and to shoot on sets in near total darkness, such as nighttime in Chuck's unelectrified house. For scenes requiring to film from cramped spaces, a Panasonic
Lumix GH4 camera was used. In season 4, three RED and two VariCam Pure cameras were used.
Title sequences Each episode's
title sequence features a different low-quality image that recalls Saul Goodman's days on
Breaking Bad. These include the inflatable
Statue of Liberty balloon that sat atop Saul's office, a drawer of burner phones kept in his desk, and a bus stop bench advertising his business. Gould and Gilligan were inspired by the poor quality of early
VHS tapes and the notoriously low production values of 1980s
public-access television and by the fact that Saul Goodman's law firm ads on
Breaking Bad were done in a similar style. They intended the title sequences to appear "purposefully shitty" in order to stand out from their contemporaries, which generally had increased visual quality and production standards. Some of the title sequences were put together from unused footage from
Breaking Bad, but others were filmed specifically for the new series. The title sequences were put together by assistant editor Curtis Thurbe, and scored by
Little Barrie guitarist
Barrie Cadogan. When Cadogan was putting the music together, he was told the producers wanted a piece of music that would be cut abruptly at 15 seconds. With the final season featuring thirteen episodes instead of the usual ten, the title sequences took on a new format. The title sequence for "
Nippy" features Saul Goodman's "World's Greatest Lawyer" mug falling off his desk and shattering on the floor, as was typical during a season's tenth episode. However, the title image and music prematurely stop and are replaced by a blue screen, recreating the effects of a home video recording on a
VCR, and then display the show's title and creator credits. This is also the first episode to take place entirely after the events of
Breaking Bad. The remaining three title sequences retain the blue background, but briefly flash to an image previously unseen in the intro, with a distorted version of the theme song playing underneath. They then revert to the blue background and display the title and creator credits. Before the show resumes, they again briefly flash to another new image that will be seen later on in the episodes. ==Episodes==