‘Lucky Hank’ Trailer: Bob Odenkirk Is a Frazzled Professor in His Next AMC Series
Slippin’ Jimmy slipped his way back onto AMC. Less than a year after closing out the saga of Saul Goodman on “Breaking Bad” prequel “Better Call Saul,” Bob Odenkirk is back on the channel for new series “Lucky Hank,” and the first full-length trailer for the college-set show dropped this Wednesday.
Alongside the trailer, AMC Networks also revealed that the series’ debut episode will also air on BBC America, IFC, and SundanceTV, in addition to AMC and its streamer AMC+.
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Based on the 1997 novel “Straight Man” by Richard Russo, best known for the Pulitzer Prize-winning book “Empire Falls,” “Lucky Hank” has a similar premise to 2021’s Netflix series “The Chair,” which starred Sandra Oh as the stressed-out chair of a college’s English department. Odenkirk takes on the role of William Henry Devereaux Jr., the English department chair at Railton College, a poorly funded university in the Pennsylvania rust belt.
The series focuses on Hank as he goes through a mid-life crisis rooted in “unresolved issues with his father, a mediocre and entitled student body, and in the fact that his department is more savagely divided than the Balkans,” per the logline. As Hank begins to unravel, his wife Lily (Mireille Enos), the vice principal of the town’s local high school, begins to question her path and life decisions. The series also stars Sara Amini, Diedrich Bader, Suzanne Cryer, Olivia Scott Welch, and Cedric Yarbrough. Kyle Maclachlan, Alvina August, Tom Bower, Shannon DeVido, Chris Diamantopoulos, Lilah Fitzgerald, Jackson Kelly, Arthur Keng, and Oscar Nuñez are among the first season’s guest stars.
Aaron Zelman and Paul Lieberstein developed the series for television and co-showrun the first season. The two also executive produce alongside Odenkirk, Russo, director Peter Farrelly, Mark Johnson, Naomi Odenkirk, Marc Provissiero, and Jessica Held. AMC Studios produces the series in partnership with Sony Pictures’ Television TriStar TV and Johnson’s Gran Via.
“Lucky Hank” will make its world premiere at Austin’s SXSW festival on March 11, before making its television debut on March 19. The series runs for eight episodes, with the finale set for May 7. Watch the full trailer for the series below.
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