‘Straight Man’: Bob Odenkirk Reunites With AMC For College Rust Belt Series

After six successful, critically acclaimed, and Emmy-winnings seasons, comedic actor Bob Odenkirk is wrapping up his hit spinoff series “Better Call Saul,” based on the “Breaking Bad” series that it spun off from. His relationship with AMC has been mutually beneficial, giving him leading man status and charging the ratings, and now the two of them are looking to reunite on a new show.

Deadline reports that Odenkirk and AMC will team for “Straight Man,” which will see the actor play an “unlikely chairman of the English department in a badly underfunded college in the Pennsylvania rust belt.”

READ MORE: ‘Better Call Saul’ Season 6 Trailer: Bob Odenkirk Finally Breaks Bad

The series that will be adapted by showrunners Aaron Zelman and Paul Lieberstein is based on the hilarious and true-to-life novel penned by Richard Russo (“Nobody’s Fool”). AMC has ordered scripts for “Straight Man,” If the project moves forward is eyeing a 2023 debut.

Publisher Penguin Random House has listed the following synopsis for the book released in 1997:

William Henry Devereaux, Jr., is the reluctant chairman of the English department of a badly underfunded college in the Pennsylvania rust belt. Devereaux’s reluctance is partly rooted in his character–he is a born anarchist–and partly in the fact that his department is more savagely divided than the Balkans.  

In the course of a single week, Devereaux will have his nose mangled by an angry colleague, imagine his wife is having an affair with his dean, wonder if a curvaceous adjunct is trying to seduce him with peach pits, and threaten to execute a goose on local television. All this while coming to terms with his philandering father, the dereliction of his youthful promise, and the ominous failure of certain vital body functions.

Odenkirk started in comedy (see the beloved cult sketch show “Mr. Show” with David Cross) before transitioning to a spate of crime roles starting with “Breaking Bad.” Not that ‘Saul’ isn’t laced with wicked black humor, but “Straight Man” and this William Henry Deveraux Jr. character seem like a perfect opportunity for Odenkirk to really stretch his comedic muscles again in a major way.