[6][7] Breaking Bad revolves around chemistry teacher-turned-methamphetamine drug lord Walter White (Bryan Cranston) and his former student and fellow crook Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul).

[15][16] The franchise is owned by Sony Pictures Television and received strong critical acclaim; numerous awards were given to Breaking Bad, to Better Call Saul, and to El Camino.

Breaking Bad tells the story of Walter White (Bryan Cranston), an underpaid, overqualified, and dispirited high-school chemistry teacher in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

After being diagnosed with stage-three lung cancer, he enlists the help of his former chemistry student, Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul), to produce and distribute crystal meth to secure his family's financial future.

Others include Bob Odenkirk as Walter's and Jesse's lawyer Saul Goodman, Jonathan Banks as private investigator and fixer Mike Ehrmantraut, and Giancarlo Esposito as drug kingpin Gus Fring.

The final season introduces Jesse Plemons as the criminally ambitious Todd Alquist, and Laura Fraser as Lydia Rodarte-Quayle, a cunning business executive secretly managing Walter's global meth sales for her company.

Additionally, Jonathan Banks and Giancarlo Esposito star and reprise their roles as Mike Ehrmantraut and Gus Fring, respectively, while several other Breaking Bad cast members have guest-starred on the show.

[27][28] Odenkirk, Vince Gilligan, and Peter Gould, who wrote the episode that introduced Goodman, started discussions near the end of Breaking Bad of a possible spin-off expanding on the character.

[29] In April 2013, AMC and Sony Pictures Television expressed interest in Gilligan and Gould's spin-off series concept,[30] and they officially ordered Better Call Saul on September 11, 2013.

[9] Near the tenth anniversary of Breaking Bad's premiere, Gilligan started sharing the idea of creating a sequel film based on this concept.

[35] Paul, who portrayed Jesse on the series and who still felt attached to the character, expressed eagerness to be involved with any idea for a Breaking Bad continuation.

After completing the script, Gilligan selectively shopped the film to a few potential distributors, settling on Netflix and AMC due to their history with the show.

[36] Critics praised Gilligan's direction and Paul's performance, but gave a mixed consensus regarding the film's necessity to Breaking Bad's chronology.

[39] From 2017 to 2022, AMC released four separate short series that feature a mix of live action and animated segments in conjunction with the last four seasons of Better Call Saul.

[46] The series, a prequel based on younger Jimmy and Chuck's time in Cicero, Illinois, was developed by Ariel Levine and Kathleen Williams-Foshee, who previously worked on the associated live-action Better Call Saul Employee Training (2017–2022).

Told in the style of classic 1970s-era cartoons, each episode is an ode to a specific movie genre — from Spaghetti Westerns and Buster Keaton to The Exorcist.

[50] Written by Jenn Carroll and Gordon Smith and directed by Michelle MacLaren, the scene offers a backstory on how Jesse Pinkman obtained the gun seen in the episode "Gliding Over All".

[53] In April 2022, a few weeks before Better Call Saul's sixth season premiere, the CNBC Prime YouTube account uploaded American Greed: James McGill.

[54] Written by Peter Gould's assistant Valerie Chu, the ten-minute short was a mockumentary done in the style of the documentary series American Greed.

It was directed by Vince Gilligan and featured Bryan Cranston, Aaron Paul, and Raymond Cruz reprising their roles as Walter White, Jesse Pinkman, and Tuco Salamanca, respectively.

[56] On March 13, 2013, after several days of speculation fueled by Univision,[57] Sony confirmed that it would be making a Spanish-language remake of Breaking Bad titled Metástasis starring Diego Trujillo as Walter Blanco (Walter White) and Roberto Urbina as José Miguel Rosas (Jesse Pinkman), alongside Sandra Reyes and Julián Arango in unnamed roles.

[58] On October 2, 2013, the cast list was revealed to include Reyes as Cielo Blanco (Skyler White) and Arango as Henry Navarro (Hank Schrader), and that the show would be set in Colombia.

[66] Episode subjects included the psychology of con artists and hit men, the economics of massive drug operations, as well as a town in the United States that catered to those who suffered from electromagnetic hypersensitivity, a condition that Better Call Saul character Chuck McGill believed afflicted him.

The host, Chris Hardwick, and guests—who included celebrity fans, cast members, and Breaking Bad crew members—discussed episodes that aired immediately preceding the talk show.

The host, Chris Hardwick, and guests—who included celebrity fans, cast members, and Better Call Saul crew members—discussed episodes that aired immediately preceding the talk show.

[82] In October 2013, New York composer Sung Jin Hong announced his intentions to create an opera inspired by the Breaking Bad episode "Ozymandias".

[84] In 2017, French editors Lucas Stoll and Gaylor Morestin created a fan edit, simply titled Breaking Bad: The Movie, condensing the entire series into a two-hour feature film and uploaded it onto Vimeo.

[92] Near the end of Better Call Saul's broadcast run in August 2022, Vince Gilligan said that he does not plan to create any more works in the Breaking Bad franchise, as he cannot expect any further installments to be critically successful.