‘Breaking Bad’ Creator Casts Kal Penn In New TV Drama ‘Battle Creek’
Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan will be working with Kal Penn of Harold and Kumar fame in Battle Creek, a new TV drama courtesy of CBS and Sony TV.
The brain behind Breaking Bad is pairing up with House producer David Shore to develop the much-awaited Battle Creek, a drama that depicts the story of an unlikely tandem of a detective and an FBI agent working together to clean the crime-ridden streets of Battle Creek, Michigan. Kal Penn playing the role of the detective was confirmed Tuesday by entertainment website Deadline.
Aside from starring in the Harold and Kumar comedy franchise, Kal has also appeared on How I Met Your Mother and 24 and is currently hosting the reality show Big Brain Theory on the Discovery Channel. Penn is also a former House star playing Dr. Lawrence Kutner and will be reunited with Shore in the anticipated police drama.
Penn decided to go for Battle Creek among other show offers because of his previous role in David Shore’s hospital drama, an involvement he had to leave mid-season for a political stint in the White House.
The actor or actress playing the FBI agent has not yet been confirmed by the producers of the show.
New York Times reported in a September article that a script for Battle Creek was written by Gilligan ten years before creating Breaking Bad. The idea for Battle Creek was revived after the massive success of Breaking Bad with CBS offering Gilligan 13 episodes for the new TV series.
Battle Creek was first revisited during the final months of Breaking Bad by Nina Tassler, president of CBS Entertainment, while brainstorming for new show ideas with Sony TV. Because Gilligan was still busy with the finale of Breaking Bad, Tessler decided to hold on to the idea until Gilligan became available for another TV series.
Van Amburg, president for programming at Sony confirmed in the New York Times article that the Breaking Bad creator will be offered a “premium license fee”, which in rough estimates could be as large as $45 million dollars for the drama’s first 13 episodes. Gilligan has made himself one of the most sough-after producers in Hollywood after Breaking Bad garnered multiple awards and millions of die-hard fans during its course.
Breaking Bad is about a chemistry teacher with cancer partnering up with a former student to create a meth empire. Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul lead the cast of Breaking Bad, both winning an Emmy for their respective roles in the show.
Gilligan will also be working with Sony on Better Caul Saul, a spinoff of Breaking Bad which will have sleazy lawyer Saul Goodman as the main character.
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