Breaking Bad series creator Vince Gilligan has revealed he pitched a Breaking Bad video game years ago that might have been inspired in part by Rockstar’s immensely popular Grand Theft Auto.
“I’m not much of a video game player, but how can you not know Grand Theft Auto,” Gilligan said in an episode of Inside the Gilliverse, as reported by NME.
Gilligan said he remembers asking his team if it might be possible to make a Breaking Bad game. He specifically called out the GTA series, and recalls asking people, “Who owns Grand Theft Auto?”
Whether or not Gilligan wanted to partner with GTA developer Rockstar Games or make a GTA-style Breaking Bad game, however, isn’t immediately clear. It’s an exciting thought, at least.
While that Breaking Bad game never materialized, Gilligan said the series would still “make sense” as a video game. In fact, a mobile game called Breaking Bad: Criminal Elements was released in 2019 before shutting down the following year.
Gilligan said he tried to make a Breaking Bad VR game for PlayStation VR, but this did not go anywhere. He didn’t share any further details about this.
The writer-director was clearly very interested in making Breaking Bad video games, saying on the episode that his team spent “a lot of energy and talent into writing three or four stories for different video games.”
“There were a lot of people hours poured into that,” Gilligan said of the attempts to make a Breaking Bad game. He added, “Making a video game is damn hard. It takes years and millions of dollars, especially when you’re trying to break new ground with VR. It never came to fruition though, which is a shame.”
Gilligan said he would not compromise on quality. He said if you’re going to make a video game, it can’t be like 1983’s E.T. adaptation, which is considered by some to be the worst game ever.
“You gotta make it great. Execution is everything,” he said. In closing, Gilligan didn’t shut the door completely on a Breaking Bad video game, but said fans would be smart to not “hold your breath about a video game.”
Breaking Bad ended in 2013 and a sequel movie called El Camino was released on Netflix in 2019. A prequel TV series, Better Call Saul, premiered in 2015 and airs its final episode this coming Monday, August 15.
No more Breaking Bad universe projects have been announced, but AMC boss Dan McDermott told Variety that the door is always open” in regards to more spin-offs.
“I can tell you that if I could do anything to encourage Vince and [Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul veteran Peter Gould] to continue on in this universe, I would do it,” he said. “I think you’d have to ask them, but the door is always open and I long for the day my phone rings and Vince, Peter or our friends at Sony call to say, ‘Hey, I think we have another show set in this universe.'”
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