HBO Passed on Breaking Bad

[Baka's Weird Case]

Yeah I've seen this mentioned a few times.

To be fair the premise sounds terrible. Broke high school chemistry teacher has cancer and sells meth. The shyt damn near sounds like a trolling pitch.
I remember Vince Gilligan said the HBO people was sitting there like during the whole pitch and then politely but firmly asked them to leave.

Fred.

is this a king of the hill reference

 

[Devilinurear]

AMC actually could have all the swearing they want, they just choose not to

FX and USA Network have shows with tons of profanity. Snowfall for instance, has as much cursing as an HBO show would

You can curse all you want on cable. Just alot of the networks choose not.

 

[RennisDeynolds]

Yall crediting AMC too much, being owned/produced by Sony pictures kept them away from a lot of the bullshyt AMC likes to pull.

Breaking Bad is still overrated. Better Call Saul >>>

 

[semicko82]

HBO kept the GOAT show (The Sopranos) so they won.

Fox passed on The Sopranos. Thank goodness

 

[ZILFIN]

Fox passed on The Sopranos. Thank goodness

Good thing, it would have been cancelled after 1 season.

 

[semicko82]

Good thing, it would have been cancelled after 1 season.

David Chase said Fox execs wanted Tony and Melfi to hook up

 

[ZILFIN]

David Chase said Fox execs wanted Tony and Melfi to hook up

Lol.

 

[MenacingMonk]

Didn't the writer's strike in 2007/2008 basically force Vince Gilligan into really planning things out & rehashing the entire show? I recall I heard/read somewhere that the writer's strike made him reevaluate killing Jesse off in the first season.

Yes.

 

[daemonova]

David Chase said Fox execs wanted Tony and Melfi to hook up

that happened in a dream sequence once, tony had plenty of chicks on the show, he didn't need to f them all

 

[daemonova]

as far as the original topic goes, they already had true detective and other sleepy shows if I think about it, they didn't need any more

 

[daemonova]

HBO also passed on Chappelle show

that was stupid but considering he flipped out it was probably for the best, HBO got too many deals with too many mercurial mugs anyway (im looking at you, Larry David)

 

[daemonova]

HBO will be upping their number of productions with HBO MAX on the way. I'll be interested to see if they keep the same batting average or they start to get some shyt shows on there.

they could Bloodraven on HBO Max, its basically Game of Thrones without dragons (which was game of thrones for the first five seasons), somebody needs to do it

 

[diggy]

HBO also passed on my pitch for 6 Figga Certified

 

[hex]

Didn't the writer's strike in 2007/2008 basically force Vince Gilligan into really planning things out & rehashing the entire show? I recall I heard/read somewhere that the writer's strike made him reevaluate killing Jesse off in the first season.

Yes and no.

The writers strike basically forced them to go all in on season 1 of "Breaking Bad". Because they only had 7 episodes to get their point across, which is why it's the most fast paced (until seasons 5A and 5B, anyway) season of the show. That's why Walt is killing people and/or disposing of bodies damn near immediately.

The Jesse thing has been over blown. Vince Gilligan said he thought about killing off Jesse but it was never a concrete plan, so it wasn't anything they changed. Walt Jr. was also supposed to die, and Skyler was supposed to commit suicide in season 5A. There was also supposed to be another cartel boss (which eventually became Gus Fring) that would cripple people with a sledge hammer and a chisel. He was supposed to kill Walt's son in season 2.

Fred.

 

[MenacingMonk]

as far as the original topic goes, they already had true detective and other sleepy shows if I think about it, they didn't need any more

True Detective started in 2014.