No more half-measures: the globally-anticipated Breaking Bad movie, El Camino, will drop on Netflix on October 11 – and a trailer has been released.
El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie is set to pick up where the thunderous climax of Breaking Bad left off, with Jesse (Aaron Paul) on the run after escaping the torturous grip of Jack and his gang.
Coming from Breaking Bad’s creator Vince Gilligan, The official Netflix synopsis reads: ‘In the wake of his dramatic escape from captivity, Jesse must come to terms with his past in order to forge some kind of future.’
Check out the trailer below:
The trailer shows Skinny Pete, played by Charles Baker, presumably being questioned by authorities over Jesse’s whereabouts. Pete says he doesn’t know where he is; but if he did, he wouldn’t tell them, because ‘no way I’m helping you people put Jesse Pinkman back inside a cage’.
Ever since the final episode of the Golden Globe-winning show aired in 2013, fans have been clambering to find out what happened next.
In an interview with The New York Times, Paul couldn’t reveal much about the film, but says he’s happy he’s done it.
Paul said:
It’s a chapter of Breaking Bad that I didn’t realize that I wanted, and now that I have it, I’m so happy that it’s there.
Paul added that he thought he’d said goodbye to Jesse when the series came to a close, saying ‘it was a hard, emotional thing for all of us… when the finale happened, we all got together and hugged it out and said I love you. And that was it.’
However, Gilligan had other plans. He phoned Paul around two years ago to have a discussion on how to celebrate Breaking Bad‘s 10th anniversary.
As per The New York Times, Paul said:
At the very end of the conversation, he mentioned that he had an idea of where to take it from here, and he wanted to hear my thoughts on it. I quickly told Vince that I would follow him into a fire.
The show’s last episode is one of the most highly regarded finales in modern TV history; of the final four episodes, not one is rated lower than 9.7 on IMDb.
Paul’s concerns about where a film would take Jesse were soon allayed after reading Gilligan’s El Camino script.
Paul explained:
I couldn’t speak for a good 30, 60 seconds. I was just lost in my thoughts. As the guy who played the guy, I was so happy that Vince wanted to take me on this journey.
Bob Odenkirk, who plays Walt’s shady attorney Saul Goodman – the focus of Breaking Bad spin-off Better Call Saul – revealed earlier in August that the film had already finished filming – and nobody knew about it. A modern day miracle in today’s spoilerific culture.
As per by The Hollywood Reporter, Odenkirk said:
I’ve heard so many different things about it, but I am excited about the Breaking Bad movie. I can’t wait to see it.
I don’t know what people know and don’t know. I find it hard to believe you don’t know it was shot. They did it. You know what I mean? How is that a secret? But it is. They’ve done an amazing job of keeping it a secret.
People had been asking Paul if he was working on Better Call Saul; but in reality, nobody knew he was filming El Camino. By the time news outlets had started to hone in on it, ‘the movie had already happened and was in the can. It was done.’
Paul said:
I just said I was doing this small little indie out in New Mexico and that was it. No one second-guessed it.
All I can say, I think people will be really happy with what they see.
The movie has been in the works for some time, emerging through a storm of hoaxes, rumours and teases from everyone on board.
In June this year, Paul and Bryan Cranston, who plays the show’s main protagonist Walter White, took to Twitter and Instagram to rile up viewers. They each shared similar posts; one with mule’s heads, and another of them walking together.
While those tweets ended up being a sly hype-builder for an alcohol collaboration – a new mezcal brand called Dos Hombres – there’s always the chance it was a double bluff to throw people off the scent.
For the uninitiated and unaware who haven’t watched Breaking Bad (if you fall into this camp, sort your life out), the show revolved around Walter’s meteoric rise to the top of the crystal meth game. As a chemistry teacher with cancer, he takes up meth-making as a way to build up some cash.
He brings on Jesse, a former student, as a helper – as they get deeper and deeper into the underworld, family and friends collide as they become shadows of who they once were. Cranston’s return hasn’t been confirmed, so we will have to wait and see where Gilligan takes us next.
Am I excited for the movie? You’re god damn right.
If you have a story you want to tell send it to UNILAD via story@unilad.com
After graduating from Glasgow Caledonian University with an NCTJ and BCTJ-accredited Multimedia Journalism degree, Cameron ventured into the world of print journalism at The National, while also working as a freelance film journalist on the side, becoming an accredited Rotten Tomatoes critic in the process. He’s now left his Scottish homelands and took up residence at UNILAD as a journalist.