A Breaking Bad movie starring Aaron Paul as Jesse Pinkman is now in the works, but could it also connect to spin-off Better Call Saul? The movie’s brief logline is that it’ll follow “the escape of a kidnapped man and his quest for freedom”, or in other words, we’re going to be seeing exactly what happened to Jesse Pinkman in the aftermath of Breaking Bad’s series finale, Felina.
There are a number of characters who could feasibly appear, but there’s only one who we’ve actually seen on screen in a post-Breaking Bad world: Gene. The black-and-white life of the-man-formerly-known-as-Saul-Goodman-formerly-known-as-Jimmy-McGill has offered up some brief yet tantalizing hints of what comes next in his story, hiding away as a Cinnabon manager in Nebraska after escaping Albuquerque, but there’s also a means for it to set up - or at least connect to - the movie.
Gene may be in Omaha, but his Breaking Bad past isn’t far behind him, and in Better Call Saul season 4 the taxi driver who spooked him had an Albuquerque air freshener in his cab. It’s not too much of a stretch, then, to imagine those worlds colliding further as the series goes on and Jimmy/Saul/Gene all begin to coalesce into one final whole.
The future storyline could be set prior to the end of Breaking Bad, which is also when we expect the movie to pick up, so there’s a chance for the TV show to make some big winks towards it. The death of Walter White and the escape of Jesse Pinkman are going to be hot topics, and if Gene is keeping his ear to the ground believing someone’s after him, he could well pick up a few new pieces of information. It might not even be something so on the nose, given Vince Gilligan’s love of subtlety - especially within Better Call Saul - but rather a little nod or wink towards the movie and the status of Jesse.
A direct appearance feels less likely, but also can’t be fully ruled out. If Jesse goes on the lam - which he probably has to, given he was part of a drug empire and the only survivor of a bunch of murders - then he’s going to need some legal help. Trying to turn to his old lawyer Saul is the kind of move a desperate man with few friends left would make, or again it could be done in a less overt way, with Gene hearing some whispers about it on the grapevine as Jesse goes into the legal system.
So far, Gilligan has avoided compromising either of his shows for the sake of fan service or unnecessary connections, so it’s doubtful anything will happen in Better Call Saul to connect it to the Breaking Bad Movie unless it primarily supports Saul as well, but as we see the way he’s woven the story together so far (see: Lalo), including some fan-favorite characters in key places in Better Call Saul, it’s certainly not out of the question.
Better Call Saul is a very different show to Breaking Bad, but it’s never tried to steer away from the obvious connections between the two. Gilligan has previously remained open to including Jesse on Better Call Saul (as has Aaron Paul), and even if that doesn’t happen, with him at the helm of show and movie, he’s going to be looking for ways to tie the two together.
