Similar to powerhouse creative Vince Gilligan and Better Call Saul co-star Rhea Seehorn, Bob Odenkirk is already returning with a brand new drama series titled Lucky Hank (formerly: Straight Man) which is scheduled to premiere later this year on March 19th, 2023.
At face value, Odenkirk’s latest AMC project shares some DNA with the vehicles for his most notable roles: the con man turned morally flexible lawyer Saul Goodman (AKA Jimmy McGill) and, to an extent, Hutch Mansell in Nobody. Based on the 1997 novel Straight Man by Richard Russo, this time around, the Emmy-nominated actor portrays William Henry Deveraux Jr – “the unlikely chairman of the English department in a badly underfunded college in the Pennsylvania Rust Belt,” according to the official synopsis.
“Being an adult is 80% misery,” Bob Odenkirk’s William Henry Deveraux Jr says in the first trailer.
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Bob Odenkirk is joined by Mireille Enos (The Killing, Hanna, World War Z), who stars as his wife Lily Devereaux, in addition to the likes of Oscar Nunez (The Office), Kyle MacLachlan (Twin Peaks), Tom Bower (Raymond & Ray), and Chris Diamantopoulos (Silicon Valley).
“Nunez will play Jacob Rose, the dean of Ralston College and a friend of Hank’s. Bower plays Hank’s estranged father, an intellectual giant who threatens to move close to Hank and his mother,” explains Rick Porter of The Hollywood Reporter.
“MacLachlan will play the college’s president, Dickie Pope, a nemesis to Hank and the other professors. Diamantopoulos will play Tom Leska, an old flame of Lily Deveraux.”
The original novel has been adapted by Aaron Zelman (Silicon Valley) and Paul Lieberstein (The Office). The duo also serves as both showrunners and executive producers to Lucky Hank alongside author Richard Russo, director Peter Farrelly, Odenkirk himself, as well as Breaking Bad & Better Call Saul’s Mark Johnson, Naomi Odenkirk, and Marc Provissiero.
As mentioned earlier, back in September 2022, it was announced that Breaking Bad universe creator Vince Gilligan was helming a brand new series for Apple TV+ led by Rhea Seehorn, who portrayed attorney and love interest Kim Wexler in Better Call Saul.
“After fifteen years, I figured it was time to take a break from writing antiheroes — and who’s more heroic than the brilliant Rhea Seehorn?” Vince Gilligan expressed via statement.
“It’s long past time she had her own show, and I feel lucky to get to work on it with her. And what nice symmetry to be reunited with [former co-presidents of Sony Pictures] Zack Van Amburg, Jamie Erlicht, and Chris Parnell (Rick and Morty, Archer, 30 Rock)!”
“Jamie and Zack were the first two people to say yes to Breaking Bad all those years ago. They’ve built a great team at Apple, and my wonderful, long-time partners at Sony Pictures Television and I are excited to be in business with them.”
At this stage, specifics about the currently untitled Vince Gilligan series starring Rhea Seehorn are few and far between. All we know for certain aside from the above:
- It’s a “blended, grounded genre drama”; potentially in the same space as The X-Files (which Gilligan previously wrote for), Black Mirror, and The Twilight Zone
- It’s coming to Apple TV+ with a two-season straight-to-series order
- Vince Gilligan himself has created the series, signing on to also serve as both executive producer and showrunner
- Jeff Frost and Diane Mercer will also executive produce while Jenn Carroll of Gilligan’s High Bridge Productions will simply produce
- This is all part of Vince Gilligan’s overall deal with Sony; which also produced both Breaking Bad and its recently-concluded prequel series starring Bob Odenkirk
- There were “multiple rounds” of bidding for the project
- The budget is “in the vicinity” of $13.5 million to $15 million per episode (USD)
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Anyway, check out the first Lucky Hank trailer at the top of this article and the original novel’s plot outline below:
William Henry Devereaux Jr is the reluctant chairman of the English department of a badly underfunded college in the Pennsylvania rust belt. Devereaux's reluctance is partly rooted in his character — he is a born anarchist — and partly in the fact that his department is more savagely divided than the Balkans. In the course of a single week, Devereaux will have his nose mangled by an angry colleague, imagine his wife is having an affair with his dean, wonder if a curvaceous adjunct is trying to seduce him with peach pits and threaten to execute a goose on local television. All this while coming to terms with his philandering father, the dereliction of his youthful promise and the ominous failure of certain vital body functions. In short, Straight Man is classic Richard Russo — side-splitting, poignant, compassionate, and unforgettable.
