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RELATED: AMC President On ‘Breaking Bad’ Order, ‘Walking Dead’ Budget & ‘Mad Men’ Deal
With 11 days left until the license fee deal on AMC’s drama Breaking Bad is set to expire, the network and producing studio Sony Pictures Television are heading into the homestretch of their negotiations for a fifth season of the dark series starring Bryan Cranston. Despite Sony sending out feelers to other cable networks and reportedly getting interest from FX, all sides feel confident that Breaking Bad will return to AMC for what is expected to be its final chapter. Creator Vince Gilligan had made it clear that he wants to end the series after Season 5. I’ve learned that AMC has an offer on the table for a standard 13-episode fifth season but Sony is looking for more. People close to the matter expect the final deal to be for 13-20 episodes, possibly spread over 2 seasons. Besides pinning down the exact size of the order, a sticking point has been who will shoulder the production cost for Breaking Bad going forward. In TV, starting with Season 5, the network take over 100% of a show’s production cost. In the early days of original series on basic cable, the networks didn’t know quite how to handle the tricky Season 4-Season 5 transition financially and tended to cancel shows after four seasons, like Lifetime’s Any Day Now. In the case of Breaking Bad, I hear AMC is asking Sony for some participation in the budget, which most recently was around $3.2 million an episode. AMC and Sony’s previous license negotiation last year was also lengthy and difficult. But this time around, a renewal appeared a much easier proposition, given the series’ double-digit ratings growth for the start of Season 4, including posting a series high with the season premiere. Additionally, the auxiliary market, where Breaking Bad had been far weaker than AMC’s signature series Mad Men, also has picked up. Thanks in part to a savvy deal Sony made with Walmart, DVD sales for Season 3 went up double digits from Season 2, a rare feat for a series these says. And after it wraps a deal for the show, Sony has to also forge a new pact with Gilligan whose contract is also up after this season.
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LOVE this show and also completely support the idea to end the series after one more season. So far, the show has been incredibly strong but one can feel the characters and the story begin to hit its peak. Wise decision to keep it strong and end it before it becomes stale.
Is $3.2 million an epsidoe really high for a cable hour long? It seems like it is, but I really don’t know and am genuinely curious, not asking in a snarky way.
Well, It can be. However, If you look at it from a film perspective. It’s really low. I think that was the Sheensters weekly salary for Two and a half Men. I’m guessing it’s somewhere in the middle for a very successful cable show.
Holy crap! $3.2 million an episode?!! Most of the saw movies were lower than that! That’s just an example off the top of my head, sorry. But still. It’s like a mini-movie!
Yes it’s Wikipedia, but the Saw movies are cited there with budgets of 1.2 mil, 4 mil, the next 3 at 10 mil each, then 11 mil, then 20 mil for the latest edition. One is significantly less than a BB episode, one is slightly higher, and the rest are significantly higher.
But still, 3.2 is probably on the high end for basic cable. That’s a solid broadcast drama budget!
Give an asshole like Matthew Weiner everything he wants!
But make nice guy Vince Gilligan beg and plead to let his show go out on top and with grace.
That makes sense.
true that!
I can definitely live with that…13-20 is perfect..Let this genius end the show right people..
I had no idea it cost so much per episode. Season four has been very slow to start and not a lot is happening. Where is the money going?
They shoot on actual film as opposed to digital, have an established television star in the lead, an established television writer/producer at the helm, do lots of location shoots and semi-regularly feature large scale action sequences.
EVERY season has started slowly and goes in to crazy action at the end….I don’t know why everyone is forgetting this..
I still feel like the show doesn’t have to end in Season 5 and they could have another season; I’d love to see how Walter, Jr. reacts to his father treating Jesse as another son, which should make him insanely jealous. There’s so much to mine! Also, Hank has to be fully mobile before the end of the series!
I’d love to see the show for another 2 seasons.
I agree with “casting couch” that Season 4 has been a little too slow for those first 2 episodes, but I really enjoyed that 3rd ep!
Sony should shoulder some of the costs since DVDs sell fairly well and the show does pull in tons of viewers on DVD and certainly not as many as it really does in live viewings.
Well, we did get to see what a complete psycho Gustavo is. That alone made the rest of the slow first two episodes worth it.
How can you guys say the first few eps have been slow? What about the shock of Victor???
We can only hope the money is put to good use later on in this season.
I disagree. Not with $3.2m being a lot per episode, but I think that it’s a good start so far in that Walt is, again, totally out of his depth and has no idea what’s coming next. In fairness though, I am a little bit bored with Jesse’s ‘totured soul’ routine.
How can you be bored with something that has only been 3 episodes??????? Be patient, Damn it!
I predicted a while back (and I think I posted about this on maybe this site, too) that the fifth season could have more episodes. My reasoning/theory was that Sony wants to have 65 episodes in the end, but the first season was only 7 episodes — cut short due to the Writer’s Guild strike at the time.
So season 5 could be 13 episodes. Then season 6 could just be 6 episodes, but I think the storyline should be so tightly written and serialized that it practically plays out like one long, but intense movie that wraps everything up.
Getting my BB geekiness On: I predict Season 5 could be Walter taking over Gus’ entire drug operation. (I don’t think he’ll kill Gus — something else, and really bad, is going to happen to Gus, but not by Walter’s hand.) But then the Mexican cartels get involved, leading to an all-out battle between them and The Heisenberg throughout Season 6 perhaps set in a lawless Mexican border town that has been taken over by the cartels. (And I feel Walter must die, due to his cancer returning, but he is at peace with this, puts things with his family and friends in order, and goes out in a blaze of glory.)
They could probably make the show “cheaper” if they sold some of the props after each episode.
the upside of this announcement made me immediately think of season 6 part 1 and season 6 part II of the sopranos. I think mad men is going to do something like this in seasons 6 and 7. anyway, i’m going to miss the hell out of breaking bad and mad men when they’re gone, just like i still quite can’t get over that i’m never going to see a new sopranos episode.
That is so true. After Matt Weiner was being a dick to AMC so it can keep MM on the air, poor Vince has to be on its dick to keep BB on the air and fresh. SHAME ON YOU, AMC!! SMH
You think $3m is allot an hour of TV ?? Charlie Sheen is demanding that much for his per episode salary for 1/2 sitcom ! $3m for BrBa is very cheap ! And they watch they’re budget very closely .. for example Walt’s condo is actually Vince G’s condo and the Twin’s Grey Mercedes was the showrunner’s as well.
The worst episode of Breaking Bad is still leagues ahead of the best of the Saw series. People are free to like what they like, but Saw is torture porn for imbeciles. The $3.2m per episode is money much better spent than Saw money ever was.
Seasons 1,2&3 were outstanding. Should have ended at season 3. Four has not been good at all and is really awful so far!