What are the Expectations for El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie?

Breaking Bad is a special show. No one could have predicted back in 2008 that a show about a meek high school chemistry teacher who is underpaid, has a pregnant wife, a son with cerebral palsy, just found out he has terminal cancer, and needs to make as much money as possible so he becomes a meth dealer, would become one of the greatest shows on television.

Not only that, this beloved show launched a spin-off, Better Call Saul, that had impossible expectations to overcome but has gained audience and critical acclaim. Even better, it had made Breaking Bad even better as it has added to the depth of the Breaking Bad world. 

Now we have El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie. There’s no way lightning can strike thrice…can it?

Next month all eyes will be on Netflix when El Camino hits. Details have been closely guarded but we know that it’s a follow up to the show that focuses on Jesse Pinkman, played by Aaron Paul. To hype the show, creator Vince Gilligan did an interview with The Hollywood Reporter and revealed that El Camino will include “more than 10” characters from the Breaking Bad series.

He didn’t name all the names but we now know besides Pinkman, he’ll be joined by Skinny Pete (Charles Baker) and Badger (Matt L. Jones). Also discussed in the interview was a “key cast member” that was mysteriously shuttled in and out of Albuquerque, NM on a private plane to keep his (or her) identity a secret. 

Just a reminder, in an interview back in November of 2018, Bryan Cranston, aka Walter White, confirmed that a movie was in the works but said he had not seen a script, though was interested in appearing if Gilligan asked him to.

When it came time to talk about the origins of the movie, Gilligan shared that he began developing the story before Breaking Bad wrapped up. “I didn’t really tell anybody about it, because I wasn’t sure I would ever do anything with it,” he says. “But I started thinking to myself, ‘What happened to Jesse?’ You see him driving away. And to my mind, he went off to a happy ending. But as the years progressed, I thought, ‘What did that ending — let’s just call it an ending, neither happy, nor sad — what did it look like?’”

Here we are again. Expectations are big for El Camino especially with Better Call Saul proving there was still magic in the Breaking Bad formula. But you have to have it in the back of your head a little doubt that Gilligan might be reaching a little too far and should have left Breaking Bad proper alone, right?

Who am I kidding? I’m all in on this being awesome. 

Where are your expectations at?