Jana B., Here….
I think we’ve answered the question of what the modern equivalent of The Midas Touch is. Vince Gilligan would appear to have it. He is coming off a best series win on Sunday for his hit AMC drama ‘Breaking Bad‘. He’s now teamed up with ‘House‘ creator David Shore for an upcoming CBS drama titled ‘Battle Creek‘. CBS has finalized a production order for the 2014-2015 season already committing to 13 episodes. Gilligan originally created this at least 10 years ago. Sony will co-produce with CBS TV Studios, with Gilligan, Shore and ‘Breaking Bad’s‘ Mark Johnson all set to Executive Produce.
Sony holds an overall contract with Gilligan that is up but they would be crazy not to discuss a new one! This is Gilligan’s second post-‘Breaking Bad‘ series. He is also executive producing the ‘Breaking Bad‘ spinoff ‘Better Call Saul‘, based off the questionable lawyer from the series.
Shore will serve as show runner with Gilligan directing. Sony TV has had an incredibly strong last few days, scoring a best drama series win on Sunday for Breaking Bad, a strong opening for its new NBC series The Blacklist on Monday, followed by the order for Battle Creek today.
‘Battle Creek‘ is going to center on two detectives with entirely different world views that are obviously going to be teamed up. If this was any other type of production, I’d call this the typical buddy-cop setup. But I have a feeling this is going to be a bit darker than that. The open-ended question going into this series is this: is cynicism, guile and deception enough to clean up the semi-mean streets of Battle Creek, Michigan in the face of a complete lack of resources; or is the exact opposite true – it takes naïveté, trust and a shit ton of resources?
Gilligan…not ‘Gilligan’s Island‘….no matter how many times I type this, knowing it’s Vince Gilligan…I think of ‘Gilligan’s Island’. Anyhow pre-Breaking Bad fame, Vince Gilligan developed the show at CBS in 2002. The script, obviously, didn’t go forward at the time. But, it stayed on entertainment president Nina Tassler’s radar as she considered revisiting it multiple times. Clearly you need to have an amazingly smart, funny, edgy and mega hit show before she will consider your previous efforts. They took a pass at the original script and the project was taken to CBS.