title: Muhammad Ali

text: Ali was known for being a humanitarian and philanthropist. He focused on practicing his Islamic duty of charity and good deeds, donating millions to charity organizations and disadvantaged people of all religious backgrounds. It is estimated that Ali helped to feed more than 22million people afflicted by hunger across the world. Early in his career, one of his main focuses was youth education. He spoke at several historically black colleges and universities about the importance of education, and became the largest single black donor to the United Negro College Fund in 1967 by way of a $10,000 donation ($78,000 in 2020 USD). In late 1966, he also pledged to donate a total of $100,000 to the UNCF (specifically promising to donate much of the proceeds of his title defense against Cleveland Williams), and paid $4,500 per closed circuit installation at six HBCUs so they could watch his fights.


title: Muhammad Ali

text: Ali began visiting Africa, starting in 1964 when he visited Nigeria and Ghana. In 1974, he visited a Palestinian refugee camp in Southern Lebanon, where Ali declared "support for the Palestinian struggle to liberate their homeland." In 1978, following his loss to Spinks and before winning the rematch, Ali visited Bangladesh and received honorary citizenship there. The same year, he participated in The Longest Walk, a protest march in the United States in support of Native American rights, along with singer Stevie Wonder and actor Marlon Brando.


title: Muhammad Ali

text: In early 1980, Ali was recruited by President Jimmy Carter for a diplomatic mission to Africa, in an effort to persuade a number of African governments to join the US-led boycott of the Moscow Olympics (in response to the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan). Having arrived in Tanzania, Ali told cameras "Russia is invading a Muslim country, Asiatic country", and that its probable intention to head to oil-rich Persia to take dwells and ports "could lead to nuclear war. My purpose in coming here was to try to stop that." However, according to Ali biographer Thomas Hauser, "at best, it was ill-conceived; at worst, a diplomatic disaster." The Tanzanian government was insulted that Carter had sent an athlete to discuss a serious political issue. One official asked whether the United States would "send Chris Evert to negotiate with London." Consequently, Ali was only received by the youth and culture minister, rather than President Julius Nyerere. Ali was unable to explain why the African countries should join the US boycott when it had failed to support the African boycott of the 1976 Olympics (in protest of Apartheid in South Africa), and was unaware that the Soviet Union was sponsoring popular revolutionary movements in Africa. Ali conceded "They didn't tell me about that in America", and complained that Carter had sent him "around the world to take the whupping over American policies." The Nigerian government also rebuffed him and confirmed that they would be participating in the Moscow games. Ali did, however, convince the government of Kenya to boycott the Olympics.


title: Muhammad Ali

text: On January 19, 1981, in Los Angeles, Ali talked a suicidal man down from jumping off a ninth-floor ledge, an event that made national news.


title: Muhammad Ali

text: In 1984, Ali announced his support for the re-election of United States President Ronald Reagan. When asked to elaborate on his endorsement of Reagan, Ali told reporters, "He's keeping God in schools and that's enough." In 1985, he visited Israel to request the release of Muslim prisoners at Atlit detainee camp, which Israel declined.


title: Muhammad Ali

text: Around 1987, the California Bicentennial Foundation for the U.S. Constitution selected Ali to personify the vitality of the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights. Ali rode on a float at the following year's Tournament of Roses Parade, launching the U.S. Constitution's 200th birthday commemoration. In 1988, during the First Intifada, Ali participated in a Chicago rally in support of Palestine. The same year, he visited Sudan to raise awareness about the plight of famine victims. According to Politico, Ali supported Orrin Hatch politically. In 1989, he participated in an Indian charity event with the Muslim Educational Society in Kozhikode, Kerala, along with Bollywood actor Dilip Kumar.


title: Muhammad Ali

text: In 1990, Ali traveled to Iraq prior to the Gulf War, and met with Saddam Hussein in an attempt to negotiate the release of American hostages. Ali secured the release of the hostages, in exchange for promising Hussein that he would bring America "an honest account" of Iraq. Despite arranging the hostages release, he received criticism from President George H. W. Bush, and Joseph C. Wilson, the highest-ranking American diplomat in Baghdad."


title: Muhammad Ali

text: In 1994, Ali campaigned to the United States government to come to the aid of refugees afflicted by the Rwandan genocide, and to donate to organizations helping Rwandan refugees.


title: Muhammad Ali

text: In 1996, he lit the flame at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia. It was watched by an estimated 3.5billion viewers worldwide.


title: Muhammad Ali

text: On November 17, 2002, Ali went to Afghanistan as the "U.N. Messenger of Peace." He was in Kabul for a three-day goodwill mission as a special guest of the UN.


title: Muhammad Ali

text: On September 1, 2009, Ali visited Ennis, County Clare, Ireland, the home of his great-grandfather, Abe Grady, who emigrated to the U.S. in the 1860s, eventually settling in Kentucky.


title: Muhammad Ali

text: On July 27, 2012, Ali was a titular bearer of the Olympic flag during the opening ceremonies of the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. He was helped to his feet by his wife Lonnie to stand before the flag due to his Parkinson's syndrome rendering him unable to carry it into the stadium. The same year, he was awarded the Philadelphia Liberty Medal in recognition of his lifelong efforts in activism, philanthropy and humanitarianism.


title: Muhammad Ali

text: By 1978, Ali's total fight purse earnings were estimated to be nearly $60million (inflation-adjusted ), including an estimated $47.45million grossed between 1970 and 1978. By 1980, his total fight purse earnings were estimated to be up to $70million (inflation-adjusted $(304400000+)/1000000 round 0million).


title: Muhammad Ali

text: In 1978, Ali revealed that he was "broke" and several news outlets reported his net worth to be an estimated (inflation-adjusted $million). The press attributed his decline in wealth to several factors, including taxes consuming at least half of his income, management taking a third of his income, his lifestyle, and spending on family, charity and religious causes.


title: Muhammad Ali

text: In 2006, Ali sold his name and image for $50million, after which "Forbes" estimated his net worth to be $55million in 2006. Following his death in 2016, his fortune was estimated to be between $50million and $80million.


title: Muhammad Ali

text: Ali's Parkinson's syndrome led to a gradual decline in his health, though he was still active into the early 2000s, promoting his own biopic, "Ali", in 2001. That year he also contributed an on-camera segment to the "" benefit concert.


title: Muhammad Ali

text: In 1998, Ali began working with actor Michael J. Fox, who has Parkinson's disease, to raise awareness and fund research for a cure. They made a joint appearance before Congress to push the case in 2002. In 2000, Ali worked with the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Disease to raise awareness and encourage donations for research.


title: Muhammad Ali

text: In February 2013, Ali's brother Rahman Ali said Muhammad could no longer speak and could be dead within days. Ali's daughter May May Ali responded to the rumors, stating that she had talked to him on the phone the morning of February 3 and he was fine. On December 20, 2014, Ali was hospitalized for a mild case of pneumonia. Ali was once again hospitalized on January 15, 2015, for a urinary tract infection after being found unresponsive at a guest house in Scottsdale, Arizona. He was released the next day.


title: Muhammad Ali

text: Ali was hospitalized in Scottsdale, Arizona, on June 2, 2016, with a respiratory illness. Though his condition was initially described as fair, it worsened, and he died the following day at the age of 74 from septic shock.


title: Muhammad Ali

text: Following Ali's death, he was the number-one trending topic on Twitter for over 12 hours and on Facebook for several days. BET played their documentary "Muhammad Ali: Made In Miami". ESPN played four hours of non-stop commercial-free coverage of Ali. News networks, such as ABC News, BBC, CNN, and Fox News, also covered him extensively.


title: Muhammad Ali

text: He was mourned globally, and a family spokesman said the family "certainly believes that Muhammad was a citizen of the world ... and they know that the world grieves with him." Politicians such as Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, Donald Trump, David Cameron and more paid tribute to Ali. Ali also received numerous tributes from the world of sports including Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, Floyd Mayweather, Mike Tyson, the Miami Marlins, LeBron James, Steph Curry and more. Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer stated, "Muhammad Ali belongs to the world. But he only has one hometown."


title: Muhammad Ali

text: The day after Ali's death, the UFC paid tribute to Ali at their UFC 199 event in a lengthy video tribute package, crediting Ali for his accomplishments and inspiring multiple UFC champions.


title: Muhammad Ali

text: Ali's funeral had been pre-planned by himself and others for several years prior to his actual death. The services began in Louisville on June 9, 2016, with an Islamic Janazah prayer service at Freedom Hall on the grounds of the Kentucky Exposition Center. The Janazah prayer was attended by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. On June 10, 2016, the funeral procession passed through the streets of Louisville ending at Cave Hill Cemetery, where his body was interred during a private ceremony. A public memorial service for Ali at downtown Louisville's KFC Yum! Center was held during the afternoon of June 10. Billy Crystal gave the eulogy. The pallbearers included Will Smith, Lennox Lewis and Mike Tyson, with honorary pallbearers including George Chuvalo, Larry Holmes and George Foreman. Ali's memorial was watched by an estimated 1billion viewers worldwide.


title: Muhammad Ali

text: Ali remains the only three-time lineal heavyweight champion. He is the only boxer to be named "The Ring" magazine Fighter of the Year six times, and was involved in more "Ring" "Fight of the Year" bouts than any other fighter. He was one of only three boxers to be named "Sportsman of the Year" by "Sports Illustrated". Muhammad Ali was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in its first year and held wins over seven other Hall of Fame inductees during an era that has been called the golden age of heavyweight boxing. The Associated Press ranked him as the second best boxer and best heavyweight of the 20th century. His joint records of beating 21 boxers for the world heavyweight title and winning 14 unified title bouts stood for 35 years.


title: Muhammad Ali

text: In 1978, three years before Ali's permanent retirement, the Louisville Board of Aldermen in his hometown of Louisville, Kentucky, voted 6–5 to rename Walnut Street to Muhammad Ali Boulevard. This was controversial at the time, as within a week 12 of the 70 street signs were stolen. Earlier that year, a committee of the Jefferson County Public Schools (Kentucky) considered renaming Ali's alma mater, Central High School, in his honor, but the motion failed to pass. In time, Muhammad Ali Boulevard—and Ali himself—came to be well accepted in his hometown.


title: Muhammad Ali

text: Ali was named one of the 100 most influential Americans of the 20th century by Life magazine in 1990. In 1993, the Associated Press reported that Ali was tied with Babe Ruth as the most recognized athlete, out of over 800 dead or living athletes, in America. The study found that over 97% of Americans over 12 years of age identified both Ali and Ruth. He was the recipient of the 1997 Arthur Ashe Courage Award.


title: Muhammad Ali

text: At the end of the 20th century he was ranked at or near the top of most lists of the century's greatest athletes. He was crowned Sportsman of the Century by "Sports Illustrated". Named BBC's Sports Personality of the Century, he received more votes than the other five candidates combined. He was named Athlete of the Century by USA Today, and ranked as the third . Ali was named "Kentucky Athlete of the Century" by the Kentucky Athletic Hall of Fame in ceremonies at the Galt House East.


title: Muhammad Ali

text: In 1999, "Time" magazine named Ali one of the . On January 8, 2001, Muhammad Ali was presented with the Presidential Citizens Medal by President Bill Clinton. In November 2005, he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President George W. Bush, followed by the Otto Hahn Peace Medal in Gold of the UN Association of Germany (DGVN) in Berlin for his work with the civil rights movement and the United Nations, which he received on December 17, 2005.


title: Muhammad Ali

text: On November 19, 2005, Ali and his wife Lonnie Ali opened the $60million non-profit Muhammad Ali Center in downtown Louisville. In addition to displaying his boxing memorabilia, the center focuses on core themes of peace, social responsibility, respect, and personal growth. On June 5, 2007, he received an honorary doctorate of humanities at Princeton University's 260th graduation ceremony.


title: Muhammad Ali

text: Ali Mall, located in Araneta Center, Quezon City, Philippines, is named after him. Construction of the mall, the first of its kind in the Philippines, began shortly after Ali's victory in a match with Joe Frazier in nearby Araneta Coliseum in 1975. The mall opened in 1976 with Ali attending its opening.


title: Muhammad Ali

text: The 1976 Muhammad Ali vs. Antonio Inoki fight played an important role in the history of mixed martial arts. In Japan, the match inspired Inoki's students Masakatsu Funaki and Minoru Suzuki to found Pancrase in 1993, which in turn inspired the foundation of Pride Fighting Championships in 1997. Pride was acquired by its rival, Ultimate Fighting Championship, in 2007.


title: Muhammad Ali

text: The Muhammad Ali Boxing Reform Act was introduced in 1999 and passed in 2000, to protect the rights and welfare of boxers in the United States. In May 2016, a bill was introduced to United States Congress by Markwayne Mullin, a politician and former MMA fighter, to extend the Ali Act to mixed martial arts. In June 2016, US senator Rand Paul proposed an amendment to the US draft laws named after Ali, a proposal to eliminate the Selective Service System.


title: Muhammad Ali

text: In 2015, "Sports Illustrated" renamed its Sportsman Legacy Award to the "Sports Illustrated"'s Muhammad Ali Legacy Award. The annual award was originally created in 2008 and honors former "sports figures who embody the ideals of sportsmanship, leadership and philanthropy as vehicles for changing the world." Ali first appeared on the magazine's cover in 1963 and went on to be featured on numerous covers during his storied career.


title: Muhammad Ali

text: On January 13, 2017, the Muhammad Ali Commemorative Coin Act was introduced into the 115th Congress (2017–2019), but was not enacted.


title: Muhammad Ali

text: As a world champion boxer, social activist, sex symbol and pop culture icon, Ali was the subject of numerous creative works including books, films, music, video games, TV shows, and other. Muhammad Ali was often dubbed the world's "most famous" person in the media. Several of his fights were watched by an estimated 12 billion viewers between 1974 and 1980, and his lighting of the torch at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics was watched by an estimated 3.5billion viewers.


title: Muhammad Ali

text: Ali appeared on the cover of "Sports Illustrated" on 38 different occasions, second only to Michael Jordan's 46. He also appeared on the cover of "Time Magazine" 5 times, the most of any athlete. In 2015, Harris Poll found that Ali was one of the three most recognizable athletes in the United States, along with Michael Jordan and Babe Ruth.


title: Muhammad Ali

text: Martial artist and actor Bruce Lee was influenced by Ali, whose footwork he studied and incorporated into his own style while developing Jeet Kune Do in the 1960s.


title: Muhammad Ali

text: On the set of "Freedom Road" Ali met Canadian singer-songwriter Michel, and subsequently helped create Michel's album "The First Flight of the Gizzelda Dragon" and an unaired television special featuring them both.


title: Muhammad Ali

text: Ali was the subject of the British television program "This Is Your Life" in 1978 when he was surprised by Eamonn Andrews. Ali was featured in "Superman vs. Muhammad Ali", a 1978 DC Comics comic book pitting the champ against the superhero. In 1979, Ali guest-starred as himself in an episode of the NBC sitcom "Diff'rent Strokes". The show's title itself was inspired by the quote "Different strokes for different folks" popularized in 1966 by Ali, who also inspired the title of the 1967 Syl Johnson song "Different Strokes", one of the most sampled songs in pop music history.


title: Muhammad Ali

text: He also wrote several bestselling books about his career, including "" and "The Soul of a Butterfly". The Muhammad Ali effect, named after Ali, is a term that came into use in psychology in the 1980s, as he stated in "The Greatest: My Own Story": "I only said I was the greatest, not the smartest." According to this effect, when people are asked to rate their intelligence and moral behavior in comparison to others, people will rate themselves as more moral, but not more intelligent than others.


title: Muhammad Ali

text: "When We Were Kings", a 1996 documentary about the "Rumble in the Jungle", won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. The 2001 biopic "Ali" garnered a Best Actor Oscar nomination for Will Smith for his portrayal of Ali. Prior to making the film, Smith rejected the role until Ali requested that he accept it. Smith said the first thing Ali told him was: "Man, you're almost pretty enough to play me."


title: Muhammad Ali

text: In 2002, Ali was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his contributions to the entertainment industry. His star is the only one to be mounted on a vertical surface, out of deference to his request that the name Muhammad—a name he shares with the Islamic prophet—not be walked upon.


title: Muhammad Ali

text: "The Trials of Muhammad Ali", a documentary directed by Bill Siegel that focuses on Ali's refusal of the draft during the Vietnam War, opened in Manhattan on August 23, 2013. A 2013 made-for-TV movie titled "Muhammad Ali's Greatest Fight" dramatized the same aspect of Ali's life.


title: Muhammad Ali

text: Documentary filmmaker Ken Burns created the four-part documentary film "Muhammad Ali", spanning over eight hours on Ali's entire life. Burns worked on the film since early 2016. It was released in September 2021 on PBS. Dave Zirin, who watched an 8-hour rough cut of this documentary, called it "utterly outstanding" and said "the footage they found will blow minds".


title: Val Kilmer

text: Valentine Edward Kilmer (born December 31, 1959) is an American actor. Originally a stage actor, Kilmer found fame after appearances in comedy films, starting with "Top Secret!" (1984) and "Real Genius" (1985), as well as the military action film "Top Gun" (1986) and the fantasy film "Willow" (1988).


title: Val Kilmer

text: Kilmer gained acclaim for his portrayal of Jim Morrison in Oliver Stone's "The Doors" (1991). Kilmer's stardom continued, as he was often cast as a main character in critically acclaimed films such as the western "Tombstone" (1993), and the crime dramas "True Romance" (1993), and "Heat" (1995). He replaced Michael Keaton portraying Bruce Wayne/Batman in Joel Schumacher's "Batman Forever" (1995). He continued acting in films such as "The Ghost and the Darkness" (1996), "The Island of Dr. Moreau" (1996), "The Saint" (1997), "The Prince of Egypt" (1998), "Pollock" (2000), "Alexander" (2004), "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" (2005), "Déjà Vu" (2006), "" (2009), and "Song to Song" (2017). "If there is an award for the most unsung leading man of his generation, Kilmer should get it," wrote critic Roger Ebert, "he has shown a range of characters so convincing that it's likely most people, even now, don't realize they were looking at the same actor."


title: Val Kilmer

text: Since 2015, Kilmer has privately struggled with throat cancer; he had a procedure on his trachea that damaged his vocal cords to the point where he had extreme difficulty speaking. He also underwent chemotherapy and two tracheotomies. In 2020, he published his memoir titled, "I'm Your Huckleberry: A Memoir". His struggle was captured in the 2021 documentary titled "Val" which documented his career and health issues. The film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival to critical acclaim. In 2022, Kilmer reprised his role as Iceman, reuniting with Tom Cruise, in "" (2022). One of the best-paid actors of the 1990s, movies featuring Kilmer have grossed over $3.5 billion at the worldwide box-office.


title: Val Kilmer

text: Kilmer was born December 31, 1959, in Los Angeles, California, the second of three sons to Gladys Swanette (; 1928–2019) and Eugene Dorris Kilmer (1921–1993). His mother was of Swedish descent. His other ancestry includes English, Irish, Scottish, German and Cherokee roots. His parents divorced in 1968 when he was 8 years old. His mother later married William Bernard Leach in 1970. Kilmer's grandfather was a gold miner in New Mexico, near the border with Arizona. In 1977, Kilmer's younger brother Wesley, who had epilepsy, drowned in a jacuzzi at age 15.


title: Val Kilmer

text: He attended Chatsworth High School with Kevin Spacey. His high school girlfriend was Mare Winningham. He became the youngest person at the time to be accepted into the Juilliard School's Drama Division, where he was a member of Group 10.


title: Val Kilmer

text: Kilmer turned down a role in Francis Ford Coppola's 1983 film "The Outsiders," as he had prior theater commitments. In 1983, he appeared off Broadway in "The Slab Boys" with Kevin Bacon, Sean Penn, and Jackie Earle Haley. That same year, his first off-stage acting role (excluding television commercials) came in the form of an episode of "ABC Afterschool Special" called "One Too Many", which was an educational drama on drinking and driving; it also starred a young Michelle Pfeiffer. Also in 1983, Kilmer self-published a collection of his own poetry entitled "My Edens After Burns," that included poems inspired by his time with Pfeiffer. The book of poems is difficult to obtain and expensive; known second-hand copies cost $300 and up.


title: Val Kilmer

text: His big break came when he received top billing in the comedy spoof of spy movies "Top Secret!," in which he played an American rock and roll star. Kilmer sang all the songs in the film and released an album under the film character's name, "Nick Rivers". While garnering more substantial roles and prestige, he also gained a reputation as a ladies' man, dating numerous women.


title: Val Kilmer

text: During a brief hiatus, he backpacked throughout Europe before going on to play the lead character in the 1985 comedy "Real Genius". He turned down a role in David Lynch's "Blue Velvet" before being cast as naval aviator "Iceman" in the action film "Top Gun" alongside Tom Cruise. "Top Gun" grossed a total of over $344 million worldwide and made Kilmer a major star. Following roles in the television films "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" and "The Man Who Broke 1,000 Chains," Kilmer played Madmartigan in the fantasy "Willow;" he met his future wife, co-star Joanne Whalley, on the film's set. Kilmer starred in the Colorado Shakespeare Festival production of "Hamlet" in 1988. In 1989, Kilmer played the lead in both "Kill Me Again," again opposite Whalley, and in TNT's "Billy the Kid."


title: Val Kilmer

text: After several delays, director Oliver Stone finally started production on the film "The Doors", based on the band of the same name. Kilmer spoke with Oliver Stone early on, concerned about what he might want to do with the story because Kilmer did not believe in or want to promote substance abuse. Kilmer saw Jim Morrison as having picked the wrong heroes, who had different issues, which were not part of the creativity or inspiration. Kilmer saw Morrison's story as one that could be told "a thousand different ways" and did not want to tell it by playing the role in the style of drugs, with which Oliver Stone agreed. Kilmer memorized the lyrics to all of lead singer Morrison's songs prior to his audition and sent a video of himself performing some Doors songs to director Stone. Stone was not impressed with the tape, but Paul A. Rothchild (the original producer of the Doors) said "I was shaken by it" and suggested they record Kilmer in the studio. After Kilmer was cast as Morrison, he prepared for the role by attending Doors tribute concerts and reading Morrison's poetry.


title: Val Kilmer

text: He spent close to a year before production dressing in Morrison-like clothes, and spent time at Morrison's old hangouts along the Sunset Strip. His portrayal of Morrison was praised and members of the Doors noted that Kilmer did such a convincing job that they had trouble distinguishing his voice from Morrison's. Paul Rothchild played Kilmer's version of "The End" for the band's guitarist, Robby Krieger, who told him, "I'm really glad they got 'The End'. We never got a recording of that live with Jim and now we've got it." However, Doors keyboardist Ray Manzarek was less than enthusiastic with how Morrison was portrayed in Stone's interpretation.


title: Val Kilmer

text: In the early 1990s, Kilmer starred in the mystery thriller "Thunderheart", the action comedy "The Real McCoy", and again teamed with "Top Gun" director Tony Scott to play Elvis Presley in "True Romance", which was written by Quentin Tarantino. In 1993, Kilmer played Doc Holliday in the western "Tombstone" alongside Kurt Russell. In the film, Doc Holliday performs Chopin's Nocturne in E minor, Op.72, No. 1; however, Kilmer does not play the piano and he practiced that one piece for months in preparation. In 1995, Kilmer starred in "Wings of Courage", a 3D IMAX film, and that same year, he starred opposite Al Pacino and Robert De Niro in "Heat", which is now considered one of the best crime/drama films of the 1990s.


title: Val Kilmer

text: In December 1993 "Batman Forever" director Joel Schumacher had seen "Tombstone" and was most impressed with Kilmer's performance as Doc Holliday. Schumacher felt him to be perfect for the role of Batman, though at the time, the role was still Michael Keaton's. In July 1994, Keaton decided not to return for a third Batman film after 1992's "Batman Returns", due to "creative differences". William Baldwin (who previously worked with Schumacher on "Flatliners") was reported to be a top contender, though just days after Keaton dropped out, Kilmer was cast. Kilmer took the role without even knowing who the new director was and without reading the script.


title: Val Kilmer

text: Released in June 1995, "Batman Forever" was a success at the box office, despite receiving mixed reviews from critics. There was debate about Kilmer's performance: some critics, like "The New York Times" Janet Maslin, thought Kilmer was a poor successor to Keaton in the part; while others, such as Roger Ebert, had kind words for Kilmer. "Batman" co-creator Bob Kane said in a "Cinescape" interview that of all the actors to have played Batman up to that point, he felt Kilmer had given the best interpretation. Film critic Leonard Maltin (who criticized the dark tone contained in "Batman Returns") complimented Kilmer's portrayal when he reviewed the film for his expanding collection of film reviews. Defenders of "Batman Forever" praised the film for portraying Batman as a more heroic, less ruthless, and more human character than in the Tim Burton films. The film also brought the film interpretation of Bruce Wayne more into line with his comic book counterpart, showing him as a socialite and a very public figure rather than the neurotic recluse of the previous films.


title: Val Kilmer

text: In February 1996, Kilmer decided not to return for another Batman feature film, feeling that Batman was being marginalized in favor of the villains and because of scheduling problems with "The Saint". George Clooney replaced Kilmer as Batman in 1997's "Batman & Robin". There were also reports that Kilmer had not had a good working relationship with Schumacher, as another reason for not reprising the role.


title: Val Kilmer

text: In 1996 he appeared in a largely unknown film, "Dead Girl", and starred alongside Marlon Brando in the poorly received "The Island of Dr Moreau". That year, Kilmer starred alongside Michael Douglas in the thriller "The Ghost and the Darkness". In 1997 he played Simon Templar in the popular action film, "The Saint". Kilmer looked forward to the title role as a change toward a more fun, less serious action thriller, while enjoying the "master of disguise" chameleon characters like a mad artist, a nerdy British scientist, a cleaner, and a Russian mob boss. Kilmer also wrote the poetry in the film. He received a salary of $6 million for the movie. "The Saint" was a financial success, grossing $169.4 million worldwide.


title: Val Kilmer

text: In 1998, he voiced Moses in the animated film "The Prince of Egypt", before starring in the independent film "Joe the King" (1999). Also in 1999, he played a blind man in the drama/romance "At First Sight", which he described as being, of then, the hardest role he had ever had.


title: Val Kilmer

text: Kilmer's first role in 2000 was in the big budget Warner Bros. box office disaster "Red Planet". That same year, he had a supporting role in the film "Pollock" and hosted "Saturday Night Live" for the first time. In 2002, he starred in the thriller "The Salton Sea", which was generally well-reviewed, but received only a limited release. The same year, he teamed with his "True Romance" co-star, Christian Slater to appear in the low-budget film, "Hard Cash", also known as "Run for the Money".


title: Val Kilmer

text: In 2003, Kilmer starred alongside Kate Bosworth in the drama/thriller "Wonderland", portraying porn star John Holmes. He also appeared in "The Missing", where he again worked with "Willow" director Ron Howard. The next year, he starred in David Mamet's "Spartan", where he played a United States government secret agent who is assigned the task of rescuing the kidnapped daughter of the President. He received Delta Force-like training in preparation for the role. Subsequently, he had a role in the drama, "Stateside", and starred (again with Slater) in the thriller "Mindhunters", which was filmed in 2003 but not released until 2005. Kilmer next appeared in the big budget Oliver Stone production, "Alexander", which received poor reviews.


title: Val Kilmer

text: Also in 2004, Kilmer returned to the theater to play Moses in a Los Angeles musical production of "", produced by BCBG founder Max Azria. The production played at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood and also featured Adam Lambert. Kilmer had previously played Moses in the animated film "The Prince of Egypt".


title: Val Kilmer

text: Finally in 2004, Kilmer appeared in an episode of "Entourage", where he played a Sherpa whose primary source of income was growing, harvesting and distributing high-quality cannabis, all under a guise of metaphysical insights.


title: Val Kilmer

text: Kilmer was in negotiations with Richard Dutcher (a leading director of Mormon-related films) to play the lead role in a film entitled "Prophet: The Story of Joseph Smith", although the project never materialized.


title: Val Kilmer

text: Kilmer performed in "The Postman Always Rings Twice" on the London stage from June to September 2005. In 2005, he co-starred with Robert Downey, Jr. in the action-comedy film "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang". His performance was praised and the film was well reviewed, but it received only a limited release. It later won the award for "Overlooked Film of the Year" from the Phoenix Film Critics Society.


title: Val Kilmer

text: In 2006 he reunited with director Tony Scott a third time for a supporting role opposite Denzel Washington in the box-office hit "Déjà Vu". The song "Val Kilmer" was named after him on Bowling for Soup's 2006 album "The Great Burrito Extortion Case". The song was later used for a Ford Motors commercial on season 10 of "American Idol" in 2011. In 2007, he guest-starred on the hit TV series "Numb3rs" in the episode "Trust Metric", portraying torture expert Mason Lancer. That same year, he released a CD, proceeds of which went to his charity interests. In 2008, Kilmer starred alongside Stephen Dorff in the Sony and Stage 6 film "Felon". The film was given only a limited theatrical release in New York and Los Angeles in 2008, but it developed into a success secondary to positive word of mouth.


title: Val Kilmer

text: Kilmer was the voice of the car KITT for the 2008 "Knight Rider" TV pilot film and the following television series. He replaced Will Arnett, who had to step down from the role due to contractual conflict with General Motors. In keeping with tradition established by the original "Knight Rider" series and original KITT actor William Daniels, Kilmer was uncredited for the role on-screen. He next starred alongside Nicolas Cage in the Werner Herzog film "", and alongside Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson in "Streets of Blood". Both were released in 2009. He appeared as the main antagonist "Mongoose" in a live TV series adaptation of the comic/video game of "XIII" on NBC in 2009.


title: Val Kilmer

text: In 2010 Kilmer starred in Michael Oblowitz's horror film "The Traveler", in which he played the vengeful spirit of a man who had been tortured and murdered while in police custody. In November 2010, Kilmer was filming in Kelseyville, California. He was finally able to work with his lifelong friend Francis Ford Coppola and star in the film "Twixt". The film was filmed mostly on Coppola's estate in Napa County. The filming was expected to take five weeks and was being independently funded by Coppola. In 2010, Kilmer appeared as the villain Dieter Von Cunth in "MacGruber" and had a small cameo role in the music video for Tenacious D's "To Be the Best".


title: Val Kilmer

text: Kilmer spoke at the May 5, 2010, commencement ceremonies of William Woods University in Fulton, Missouri. During his week-long visit on campus, he also performed his one-man play, "Citizen Twain". He received an honorary doctorate "in recognition of his creative abilities and his contributions to art and theater."


title: Val Kilmer

text: In 2012 Kilmer received a Grammy nomination for Best Spoken Word. He also starred in Harmony Korine's short film "The Lotus Community Workshop", part of the collaborative film "The Fourth Dimension". He plays a version of himself from an alternate reality: a former actor turned self-help guru. "The Fourth Dimension" is a collection of three standalone short films about parallel universes produced by Vice Films in collaboration with Grolsch Film Works, a new division of the namesake beer company. Kilmer notes that his addition to the list of actors, including John Malkovich ("Being John Malkovich") and Al Pacino ("Jack and Jill"), that mock their real-life persona in fictional movies was an accident and says, "I still love saying the premise because it makes me laugh every time."


title: Val Kilmer

text: In 2002 Kilmer worked on a film about the life of Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of the Christian Science church, and Mark Twain, one of her most famous critics. Kilmer is still working on the film, which is about the lives and relationship of Eddy and Twain as "a quirky, tender, tragicomic portrait of two contrasting lives, set against the backdrop of Gilded Age America." "Citizen Twain" was initially performed as a one-man show Hollywood workshop in April 2012; it then became the basis of Kilmer's film project, which would be his directorial debut. The 90-minute film version of his one-man stage show was released as "Cinema Twain". In 2013, he reunited with his "Top Gun" co-star Anthony Edwards in the Disney animated movie ""Planes"". Kilmer voiced the character Bravo, while Edwards supplied Echo. Kilmer also played the role of Detective Dobson in the series finale of the television show "Psych".


title: Val Kilmer

text: In 2017, Kilmer appeared in "Song to Song" opposite Rooney Mara and Ryan Gosling and directed by Terrence Malick. Kilmer also appeared in the 2017 film "The Snowman", opposite Michael Fassbender and Rebecca Ferguson and directed by Tomas Alfredson.


title: Val Kilmer

text: In August 2020, Kilmer shared the screen with his daughter, Mercedes Kilmer, for the first time in "Paydirt".


title: Val Kilmer

text: On June 7, 2018, it was confirmed Kilmer would be reprising his role as Tom "Iceman" Kazansky for the upcoming "Top Gun" sequel "", which was released on May 27, 2022.


title: Val Kilmer

text: Kilmer was married to actress Joanne Whalley from March 1988 to February 1996. The two met while working together on the film "Willow". They have two children, a daughter, Mercedes (b. 1991), and a son, Jack (b. 1995).


title: Val Kilmer

text: Kilmer is known for being difficult to work with and having feuds with some of the actors with whom he has worked, notably "The Island of Dr. Moreau" co-star Marlon Brando and "Red Planet" and "Heat" co-star Tom Sizemore. Kilmer's "Tombstone" co-star, Michael Biehn, said: "People ask me what it's like to work with Val Kilmer. I don't know. Never met him. Never shook his hand. I know Doc Holliday, but I don't know [Kilmer]."


title: Val Kilmer

text: Richard Stanley, who directed Kilmer for three days in "The Island of Dr. Moreau" before being fired, recalled, "Val would arrive, and an argument would happen." John Frankenheimer, who replaced Stanley said, "I don't like Val Kilmer, I don't like his work ethic, and I don't want to be associated with him ever again." "Batman Forever" director Joel Schumacher called Kilmer "childish and impossible".


title: Val Kilmer

text: Other actors, however, have noted that Kilmer prepares for his roles extensively and meticulously. Irwin Winkler (director of "At First Sight") talked about his decision to hire Kilmer. "I'd heard the stories about him, so I checked him out. I called Bob De Niro and Michael Mann, who'd worked with him on "Heat", and they both gave him raves... I had a wonderful experience, in spite of all the naysayers."


title: Val Kilmer

text: When Kilmer's "At First Sight" co-star Mira Sorvino was asked about his reputation as "difficult to work with", she responded: "You know what, he was real easy to work with. I just hate furthering rumors about people being difficult, because it can do such enormous damage to their careers. My experience with him was nothing but positive. He was really professional and gentlemanly, and a terrific actor."


title: Val Kilmer

text: Jeffrey Katzenberg, producer of "The Prince of Egypt", said "Val was one of the first people cast in "The Prince of Egypt". He was there every step of the way; patient, understanding, and phenomenally generous with his time."


title: Val Kilmer

text: Kilmer made several trips to New Orleans to help in the 2005 Hurricane Katrina disaster relief. Kilmer is a supporter of Native American affairs and an advocate of environmental protection. He briefly considered running for Governor of New Mexico in 2010, but decided against it.


title: Val Kilmer

text: In May 2013, Kilmer lobbied Congress on behalf of Equitable Access to Care and Health Act, or EACH Act (H.R. 1814), a bill "to provide an additional religious exemption from the individual health coverage mandate" of Obamacare.


title: Val Kilmer

text: In January 2015, Kilmer was hospitalized for what his representative said were tests for a possible tumor. Kilmer said on social media, "I have not had a tumor, or a tumor operations , or any operation. I had a complication where the best way to receive care was to stay under the watchful eye of the UCLA ICU."


title: Val Kilmer

text: After previously denying persistent rumors that he had been diagnosed with cancer, Kilmer said in April 2017 that he had experienced a "healing of cancer".


title: Val Kilmer

text: In December 2017, "The Hollywood Reporter" revealed that Kilmer had gone through a "two-year battle with throat cancer" and that "a procedure on his trachea has reduced his voice to a rasp and rendered him short of breath". In order to speak, Kilmer plugs an electric voice box in his trachea. Due to the cancer, Kilmer underwent chemotherapy and two tracheotomies.


title: Val Kilmer

text: Kilmer reported in 2020 that he had been cancer-free for four years, but he detailed ongoing struggles with medical treatments including the use of a feeding tube to eat. In 2021, Kilmer worked with Sonantic, a London-based software company, to digitally recreate his voice using AI technology and archived audio recordings of his voice.


title: Val Kilmer

text: Over 40 vocal models were generated to find the closest match, which could then be used in future projects. For the 2022 film "", director Joseph Kosinski said that despite reports to the contrary, they did not use Sonantic's AI technology in the film. Instead, they used Kilmer's actual voice and digitally altered it for clarity.


title: Breaking Bad

text: Breaking Bad is an American crime drama television series created and produced by Vince Gilligan. Set and filmed in Albuquerque, New Mexico, the series follows Walter White (Bryan Cranston), an underpaid, overqualified, and dispirited high-school chemistry teacher who is struggling with a recent diagnosis of stage-three lung cancer. White turns to a life of crime and partners with a former student, Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul), to produce and distribute methamphetamine to secure his family's financial future before he dies, while navigating the dangers of the criminal underworld. The show aired on AMC from January 20, 2008, to September 29, 2013, consisting of five seasons for a total of 62 episodes.


title: Breaking Bad

text: Among the show's co-stars are Anna Gunn and RJ Mitte as Walter's wife Skyler and son Walter Jr., and Betsy Brandt and Dean Norris as Skyler's sister Marie Schrader and her husband Hank, a DEA agent. 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.


title: Breaking Bad

text: "Breaking Bad" first season received generally positive reviews, while the rest of its run received unanimous critical acclaim, with praise for the performances, direction, cinematography, screenplay, story, and character development. Since its conclusion, the show has been lauded by critics as one of the greatest television series of all time. It had fair viewership in its first three seasons, but the fourth and fifth seasons saw a moderate rise in viewership when it was made available on Netflix just before the fourth season premiere. Viewership increased more drastically upon the premiere of the second half of the fifth season in 2013. By the time that the series finale aired, it was among the most-watched cable shows on American television. The show received numerous awards, including 16 Primetime Emmy Awards, eight Satellite Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, two Peabody Awards, two Critics' Choice Awards, and four Television Critics Association Awards. Cranston won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series four times, while Aaron Paul won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series three times; Anna Gunn won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series twice. In 2013, "Breaking Bad" entered the "Guinness World Records" as the most critically acclaimed TV show of all time.


title: Breaking Bad

text: The series gave rise to the larger "Breaking Bad" franchise. A sequel film, "," starring Paul was released on Netflix and in theaters on October 11, 2019. "Better Call Saul", a prequel series featuring Odenkirk, Banks, and Esposito reprising their "Breaking Bad" roles, as well as many others in guest and recurring appearances, debuted on AMC on February 8, 2015, and concluded on August 15, 2022.


title: Breaking Bad

text: Set in Albuquerque, New Mexico, between 2008 and 2010, "Breaking Bad" follows Walter White, a modest high school chemistry teacher who transforms into a ruthless kingpin in the local methamphetamine drug trade, driven to financially provide for his family after being diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer. Initially making only small batches of meth with his former student Jesse Pinkman in a rolling meth lab, Walter and Jesse eventually expand to make larger batches of special blue meth that is incredibly pure and creates high demand. Walter takes on the name "Heisenberg" to mask his identity. Because of his drug-related activities, Walter eventually finds himself at odds with his family, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) through his brother-in-law Hank Schrader, the local gangs, and the Mexican drug cartels (including their regional distributors), putting him and his family's lives at risk.


title: Breaking Bad

text: "Breaking Bad" was created by Vince Gilligan, who spent several years writing the Fox series "The X-Files". Gilligan wanted to create a series in which the protagonist became the antagonist. "Television is historically good at keeping its characters in a self-imposed stasis so that shows can go on for years or even decades," he said. "When I realized this, the logical next step was to think, how can I do a show in which the fundamental drive is toward change?" He added that his goal with Walter White was to turn him from Mr. Chips into Scarface. Gilligan believed the concept of showing the full drastic transformation of a character across the run of a television show was a risky concept and would be difficult to pitch without other powerful factors to support it, such as strong cinematography and acting.


title: Breaking Bad

text: The show's title is a Southern colloquialism meaning, among other things, "raising hell", and was chosen by Gilligan to describe Walter's transformation. According to "Time" entertainment editor Lily Rothman, the term has a broader meaning and is an old phrase which "connotes more violence than 'raising hell' does ... [T]he words possess a wide variety of nuances: to 'break bad' can mean to 'go wild', to 'defy authority', and break the law, to be verbally 'combative, belligerent, or threatening' or, followed by the preposition 'on', 'to dominate or humiliate'."


title: Breaking Bad

text: The concept emerged as Gilligan talked with his fellow "X-Files" writer Thomas Schnauz regarding their current unemployment and joked that the solution was for them to put a "meth lab in the back of an RV and [drive] around the country cooking meth and making money".


title: Breaking Bad

text: After writing the concept for the show and pilot, Gilligan pitched it to Sony Pictures Television, who became very interested in supporting it. Sony arranged for meetings with the various cable networks. Showtime passed on this, as they had already started broadcasting "Weeds", a show with similarities to the premise of "Breaking Bad". While his producers convinced him that the show was different enough to still be successful, Gilligan later stated that he would not have gone forward with the idea had he known about "Weeds" earlier. Other networks like HBO and TNT also passed on the idea, but eventually FX took interest and began initial discussions on producing the pilot. At the same time, FX had also started development of "Dirt", a female-centric crime-based drama series, and with three existing male-centric shows already on the network, FX passed up "Breaking Bad" for "Dirt".


title: Breaking Bad

text: One of Gilligan's agents spoke to Jeremy Elice, the director of original programming for AMC who was looking for more original shows to add alongside their upcoming "Mad Men". Elice was intrigued, and soon a meeting was set up between Gilligan, Elice, and two programming executives. Gilligan was not optimistic about this meeting, fearing they would just put him off, but instead all three showed great interest, and the meeting ended up establishing how AMC would acquire the rights from FX and set the pilot into production. It took about a year following this meeting before Sony had set up the rights with AMC and production could start.


title: Breaking Bad

text: The network ordered nine episodes for the first season (including the pilot), but the 2007–08 Writers Guild of America strike limited the production to seven episodes, as well as delaying the start of production for the second season. Within the original nine-episode arc, Gilligan had planned to kill off Jesse or Hank, as a "ballsy" moment to end the season on. This death was eliminated with the limited episode count, which Gilligan found to be a net positive given the strength of acting that both Paul and Norris brought to these roles through the seasons. The strike also helped to slow down production long enough for Gilligan and his writing team to readjust the pacing of the show, which in the original arc had been moving too quickly. Gould stated that the writer's strike "saved the show", as if they had produced the two additional episodes in the first season, they would have gone down a different creative path that he believes would have led to the show's cancellation by its third season.


title: Breaking Bad

text: The initial versions of the script were set in Riverside, California, but at the suggestion of Sony, Albuquerque was chosen for the production's location due to the favorable financial conditions offered by the state of New Mexico. Once Gilligan recognized that this would mean "we'd always have to be avoiding the Sandia Mountains" in shots directed toward the east, the story setting was changed to the actual production location. It was shot primarily on 35 mm film, with digital cameras employed as needed for additional angles, point of view shots and time-lapse photography. "Breaking Bad" cost $3 million per episode to produce, higher than the average cost for a basic cable program.


title: Breaking Bad

text: Around 2010, AMC had expressed to Sony Pictures Television and Gilligan that they felt that the third season would be the last for "Breaking Bad". Sony started to shop the show around, having gained quick interest from the FX network for two more seasons, upon which AMC changed its mind and allowed the show to continue. At the same time, Netflix was starting to aggressively shop for content to add to its service and arranged a deal with Sony for "Breaking Bad" to be available after the airing of the fourth season. Knowing that AMC had placed "Breaking Bad" on a potential cancellation route, Sony pushed to have the show added to the service in time for the fourth season. "Breaking Bad"s viewership grew greatly as viewers binged the series on Netflix, helping to assure that a fifth season could be made. The fifth-season premiere had more than double the viewership compared to the fourth season premiere, attributed to the Netflix availability. Gilligan thanked Netflix at the Emmy Awards in September 2013 after the series' conclusion for the popularity of the series, saying that Netflix "kept us on the air".


title: Breaking Bad

text: As the series progressed, Gilligan and the writing staff of "Breaking Bad" made Walter increasingly unsympathetic. Gilligan said during the run of the series, "He's going from being a protagonist to an antagonist. We want to make people question who they're pulling for, and why." Cranston said by the fourth season, "I think Walt's figured out it's better to be a pursuer than the pursued. He's well on his way to badass."


title: Breaking Bad

text: In July 2011, Vince Gilligan indicated that he intended to conclude "Breaking Bad" at the end of its fifth season. In early August 2011, negotiations began over a deal regarding the fifth and possible final season between the network AMC and Sony Pictures Television, the production company of the series. AMC proposed a shortened fifth season (six to eight episodes, instead of 13) to cut costs, but the producers declined. Sony then approached other cable networks about possibly picking up the show if a deal could not be made. On August 14, 2011, AMC renewed the series for a fifth and final season consisting of 16 episodes. In April 2012, Bryan Cranston revealed that the fifth season would be split into two halves, with the first eight episodes airing in 2012, and the final eight in 2013.


title: Breaking Bad

text: Before the series finale, Gilligan said that it was difficult to write for Walter White because the character was so dark and morally questionable: "I'm going to miss the show when it's over, but on some level, it'll be a relief to not have Walt in my head anymore." Gilligan later said the idea for Walter's character intrigued him so much that he "didn't really give much thought on how well it would sell", stating that he would have given up on the premise since it was "such an odd, dark story" that could have difficulties being pitched to studios. Ultimately, Gilligan chose to end "Breaking Bad" with Walter's death, occurring in-story two years after he had first been diagnosed with cancer and given two years to live. Gilligan said by the end of the series, "it feels as if we should adhere to our promise that we explicitly made to our audience" from the first episode.


title: Breaking Bad

text: "Breaking Bad" creator Vince Gilligan cast Bryan Cranston for the role of Walter White based on having worked with him in the "Drive" episode of the science fiction television series "The X-Files", on which Gilligan worked as a writer. Cranston played an anti-Semite with a terminal illness who took series co-protagonist Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) hostage. Gilligan said the character had to be simultaneously loathsome and sympathetic, and that "Bryan alone was the only actor who could do that, who could pull off that trick. And it is a trick. I have no idea how he does it." AMC officials, who were initially reluctant with the casting choice, having known Cranston only as the over-the-top character Hal on the comedy series "Malcolm in the Middle", approached actors John Cusack and Matthew Broderick about the role. When both actors declined, the executives were persuaded to cast Cranston after seeing his "X-Files" episode.


title: Breaking Bad

text: Cranston contributed significantly to the formation and development of the Walter White persona. When Gilligan left much of Walter's past unexplained during the development of the series, the actor wrote his own backstory for the character. At the start of the show, Cranston gained 10 pounds to reflect the character's personal decline, and had the natural red highlights of his hair dyed brown. He collaborated with costume designer Kathleen Detoro on a wardrobe of mostly neutral green and brown colors to make the character bland and unremarkable, and worked with makeup artist Frieda Valenzuela to create a mustache he described as "impotent" and like a "dead caterpillar". Cranston repeatedly identified elements in certain scripts where he disagreed with how the character was handled, and went so far as to call Gilligan directly when he could not work out disagreements with the episode's screenwriters. Cranston has said he was inspired partially by his elderly father for how Walter carries himself physically, which he described as "a little hunched over, never erect, [as if] the weight of the world is on this man's shoulders." In contrast to his character, Cranston has been described as extremely playful on set, with Aaron Paul describing him as "a kid trapped in a man's body".


title: Breaking Bad

text: Aaron Paul's casting was also initially questioned by production, as Paul looked too old and too much like a "pretty boy" to be associated with meth cooking. Gilligan reconsidered Paul's skills after seeing his audition and recalling he had also had guest starred on "The X-Files" episode "Lord of the Flies". Gilligan originally intended for Pinkman to be killed at the end of "Breaking Bad"s first season in a botched drug deal as a plot device to plague Walter White with guilt. However, Gilligan said by the second episode of the season, he was so impressed with Paul's performance that "it became pretty clear early on that that would be a huge, colossal mistake, to kill off Jesse". Similarly, Dean Norris had shown his ability to be a law enforcement official in "The X-Files" episode "F. Emasculata", and was brought on to be Hank Schrader, Walter's brother-in-law and DEA agent.


title: Breaking Bad

text: Donna Nelson, a professor of organic chemistry at the University of Oklahoma, checked scripts and provided dialogue. She also drew chemical structures and wrote chemical equations which were used as props. According to creator Vince Gilligan,


title: Breaking Bad

text: "Because Walter White was talking to his students, I was able to dumb down certain moments of description and dialogue in the early episodes which held me until we had some help from some honest-to-God chemists," says Gilligan. According to Gilligan, Nelson "vets our scripts to make sure our chemistry dialogue is accurate and up to date. We also have a chemist with the Drug Enforcement Administration based out of Dallas who has just been hugely helpful to us." Nelson spoke of Gilligan's interest in having the science right, saying that Gilligan "said it made a difference to him."


title: Breaking Bad

text: Several episodes of "Mythbusters" featured attempts to validate or disprove scenes from "Breaking Bad", often with Gilligan guest-starring in the episode to participate. In 2013, two scenes from the first season of "Breaking Bad" were put under scrutiny in a "Mythbusters Breaking Bad" special. Despite several modifications to what was seen in the show, both the scenes depicted in the show were shown to be physically impossible. It was shown impossible to use hydrofluoric acid to fully dissolve metal, flesh, or ceramic as shown in the episode "Cat's in the Bag...", and that while it was possible to throw fulminated mercury against the floor to cause an explosion, as in the episode "Crazy Handful of Nothin'", Walter would have needed a much larger quantity of the compound and thrown at a much faster speed, and likely would have killed all in the room. A later "Mythbusters" episode, "Blow It Out of the Water", tested the possibility of mounting an automated machine gun in a car as in the series finale "Felina", and found it plausible. An episode of "MythBusters Jr." proved that it was impossible for an electromagnet to draw metallic objects from across a room as in the episode "Live Free or Die".


title: Breaking Bad

text: Jason Wallach of "Vice" magazine commended the accuracy of the cooking methods presented in the series. In early episodes, a once-common clandestine method, the Nagai red phosphorus/iodine method, is depicted, which uses pseudoephedrine as a precursor to d-(+)-methamphetamine. By the season 1 finale, Walt chooses to use a different synthetic route based on the difficulty of acquiring enough pseudoephedrine to produce on the larger scale required. The new method Walt chooses is a reductive amination reaction, relying on phenyl-2-propanone and methylamine. On the show, the phenyl-2-propanone (otherwise known as phenylacetone or P2P) is produced from phenylacetic acid and acetic acid using a tube furnace and thorium dioxide (ThO) as a catalyst, as mentioned in episodes "A No Rough-Stuff-Type Deal" and "Más". P2P and methylamine form an imine intermediate; reduction of this P2P-methylamine imine intermediate is performed using mercury aluminum amalgam, as shown in several episodes, including "Hazard Pay".


title: Breaking Bad

text: One of the important plot points in the series is that the crystal meth Walter "cooks" has very long crystals, is very pure, and (despite its purity) has a strong cyan blue color. Pure crystal meth would be clear or white.


title: Breaking Bad

text: In their article "Die Chemie bei Breaking Bad" on "Chemie in unserer Zeit" (translated into English on "ChemistryViews" as "The Chemistry of "Breaking Bad"), Tunga Salthammer and Falk Harnish discuss the plausibility of the chemistry portrayed in certain scenes. According to the two, chemistry is clearly depicted as a manufacturing science without much explanation of analytical methods being provided. They also note, serious scientific subjects are mixed into the dialogue in order to show a world where chemistry plays a key role.


title: Breaking Bad

text: Michael Slovis was the cinematographer of "Breaking Bad", beginning with the second season, and he received critical acclaim for his work throughout the series. Critics appreciated the bold visual style adopted by the TV series. Although series creator Vince Gilligan and Slovis wanted to shoot "Breaking Bad" in CinemaScope, Sony and AMC did not grant them permission. Gilligan cited Sergio Leone's Westerns as a reference for how he wanted the series to look. Slovis received four Primetime Emmy Award nominations for Outstanding Cinematography for a One Hour Series and Outstanding Cinematography for a Single-Camera Series.


title: Breaking Bad

text: "Breaking Bad" was shot on 35 mm movie film because of the robustness of the equipment and to keep a focus on shooting scenes economically. It also allowed for a later digital transfer to 4K Ultra HD resolution. By the end of the fifth season, episodes had cost upwards of to produce.


title: Breaking Bad

text: Kelley Dixon was one of the few editors of "Breaking Bad" and edited many of the series' "meth montages". For the montages, she would use techniques such as jump cuts and alternating the speed of the film, either faster or slower. For her work, she received six Primetime Emmy Award nominations for Outstanding Single-Camera Picture Editing for a Drama Series and won the award in 2013.


title: Breaking Bad

text: The complete series was released on DVD and Blu-ray on November 26, 2013, in a collectable box shaped like one of the barrels used by Walt to bury his money. The set contains various features, including a two-hour documentary and a humorous alternative ending that features Cranston and his "Malcolm in the Middle" co-star Jane Kaczmarek playing their characters Hal and Lois, in a nod to the final scene from "Newhart".


title: Breaking Bad

text: The first season was originally intended to be nine episodes, but due to the 2007–2008 Writers Guild of America strike only seven episodes were filmed. It ran from January 20 to March 9, 2008.


title: Breaking Bad

text: Walter, diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer, conspires with Jesse to cook crystal meth to pay for his treatment and provide financial security for his family. Jesse secures an R.V. to cook in, while Walter devises a revolutionary formula using unregulated chemicals, creating a highly pure product tinted blue. After a run-in with the Mexican cartel, Walter adopts the nickname "Heisenberg" and trades his "blue sky" meth with psychotic drug lord Tuco Salamanca. The DEA and Hank, Walt's brother-in-law, become aware of Heisenberg's presence in the drug trade and begin investigating.


title: Breaking Bad

text: Tuco and Walter become hostile and Tuco is killed by Hank. After a failed attempt by Walter and Jesse to start their own distribution network leaves one of their dealers arrested and one murdered, Walter hires corrupt lawyer Saul Goodman, who later connects them to high-profile drug distributor Gus Fring and hitman Mike Ehrmantraut. Jesse dates his apartment manager Jane, who introduces him to heroin, making him unreliable. After selling a shipment to Gus, Walt refuses to pay Jesse his half of the money, but Jane blackmails him. Walt returns to Jesse to apologize but instead allows an unconscious Jane to choke on her own vomit. Jesse, traumatized, enters rehab. Walt seems content until he witnesses a mid-air collision of two planes; a result of Jane's father, an air-traffic controller, becoming distraught over her death while working.


title: Breaking Bad

text: On April 2, 2009, AMC announced that "Breaking Bad" was renewed for a third, 13-episode season. It premiered on March 21, 2010, and concluded on June 13, 2010. The complete third season was released on Region 1 DVD and Region A Blu-ray on June 7, 2011.


title: Breaking Bad

text: Skyler learns of Walt's crimes and seeks a divorce from him. Walt briefly retires from the drug trade, but Gus offers him a job cooking meth at a hidden lab with an assistant, Gale. Hank's investigation leads him to Jesse. He finds no evidence, but assaults Jesse and is suspended from the DEA. Walt, in order to keep Jesse from suing Hank, coerces Gus into replacing Gale with Jesse as his lab assistant. Hank is attacked by Tuco's vengeful cousins and kills them, becoming paralyzed in the aftermath. Jesse's behavior becomes erratic, and Walt is forced to kill two of Gus' drug dealers to protect Jesse. After an enraged Gus orders them killed, Walt convinces Jesse to kill Gale so Gus cannot replace them.


title: Breaking Bad

text: On June 14, 2010, AMC announced "Breaking Bad" was renewed for a fourth, 13-episode season. Production began in January 2011, the season premiered on July 17, 2011, and concluded on October 9, 2011. Originally, mini episodes of four minutes in length were to be produced before the premiere of the fourth season, but these did not come to fruition.


title: Breaking Bad

text: Gus tightens security at the lab after Gale's death. Gus and Mike drive a wedge between Walt and Jesse, coercing Jesse to be their solitary cook while at the same time eliminating the Mexican cartel. Skyler accepts Walt's meth cooking and conspires with Saul to launder the earnings. Hank, in recovery, tracks Gale's death to Gus and the drug trade, so he plans to kill Hank. Walt tricks Jesse into turning against Gus, and convinces Hector Salamanca, the last living member of the cartel, to detonate a bomb while meeting with Gus, killing them both.


title: Breaking Bad

text: On August 14, 2011, AMC announced that "Breaking Bad" was renewed for a fifth and final season consisting of 16 episodes. Season five is split into two parts, each consisting of 8 episodes. The first half premiered on July 15, 2012, while the second half premiered on August 11, 2013. In August 2013, AMC released a trailer promoting the premiere of final season with Bryan Cranston reading the poem "Ozymandias" by Percy Bysshe Shelley, over timelapse shots of "Breaking Bad" locations.


title: Breaking Bad

text: After Gus' death, Walt, Jesse, and Mike start a new meth business. When their accomplice Todd kills a child witness during a methylamine theft, Jesse and Mike sell their share of the methylamine to Declan, another distributor. Walter produces meth for Declan, and Gus' former associate Lydia starts distribution in Europe, which is so successful that Walter earns , which he buries on the Tohajiilee Indian Reservation. After Walter kills Mike during an argument, he is given names of Mike's imprisoned men from Lydia. Walt hires Todd's uncle, Jack, and his gang to kill Mike's associates; they also kill Declan.


title: Breaking Bad

text: Hank discovers Walt is Heisenberg and begins gathering evidence. He turns to Jesse, who helps track Walt's money to the reservation. When Walt is arrested, Jack's gang arrives. They kill Hank, capture Jesse, and take most of Walt's money. Assuming Walt killed Hank, Skyler betrays Walt, forcing him to flee with the remaining money. After months in hiding, Walt plans to surrender but changes course after Elliott and Gretchen publicly minimize his involvement in starting Gray Matter. Walt manipulates Elliott and Gretchen to give his earnings to Walter Jr. once he turns 18. After poisoning Lydia, Walt admits to Skyler that he manufactured meth for his own satisfaction rather than for his family. At Jack's compound, Walter kills Jack and the rest of his gang with a remote turret and frees Jesse, who kills Todd. Wounded by his own weapon, Walt asks Jesse to kill him, but Jesse refuses. The two share a farewell glance before Jesse escapes. Walt dies from his wounds in Jack's meth lab.


title: Breaking Bad

text: In an interview with "The New York Times", creator Vince Gilligan said the larger lesson of the series is that "actions have consequences". He elaborated on the show's philosophy:


title: Breaking Bad

text: In a piece comparing the show to "The Sopranos", "Mad Men" and "The Wire", Chuck Klosterman said that "Breaking Bad" is "built on the uncomfortable premise that there's an irrefutable difference between what's right and what's wrong, and it's the only one where the characters have real control over how they choose to live". Klosterman added that the central question of "Breaking Bad" is: "What makes a man 'bad' – his actions, his motives, or his conscious decision to be a bad person?" Klosterman concluded that in the world of "Breaking Bad", "goodness and badness are simply complicated choices, no different than anything else".


title: Breaking Bad

text: Ross Douthat of "The New York Times", in a response to Klosterman's piece, compared "Breaking Bad" and "The Sopranos", stating that both series are "morality plays" that are "both interested in moral agency". Douthat went on to say that Walter White and Tony Soprano "represent mirror-image takes on the problem of evil, damnation, and free will". Walter is a man who "deliberately abandons the light for the darkness" while Tony is "someone born and raised in darkness" who turns down "opportunity after opportunity to claw his way upward to the light".


title: Breaking Bad

text: The show explores most of the main characters' connections to their families in great detail. Walt justifies his decision to cook crystal meth and become a criminal because of his desire to provide for his family. In the third season he tries to exit the business because it has driven Skyler to leave him. Gus convinces him to stay, telling him it is a man's job to provide for his family, even if he is unloved. In the final episode of the series, Walt finally admits to Skyler that the main motivation for his endeavors in the meth business was his own interest, in spite of secretly securing the $9.72 million he had managed to salvage for her and the children. Jesse's loneliness in the early seasons of the show can be partly explained by his parents' decision to kick him out of their home due to his drug-related activities. This parental disconnect brings him closer to Jane, whose father berates her for her drug use. When Walt crosses paths with Jane's father, Walt refers to Jesse as his nephew and laments the fact that he cannot get through to him. Jane's father responds by telling him to keep trying, saying, "Family. You can't give up on them, ever. What else is there?" Jane's subsequent death, which Walt purposefully did not prevent, is a major factor in her father causing the airliner crash at the end of the second season.


title: Breaking Bad

text: Even the show's more hardened characters maintain ties to family. In the second season, Tuco Salamanca spends time caring for his physically disabled uncle, Hector. When Tuco is killed by Hank, his cousins vow revenge. Their actions are further explained in a flashback, where Hector explains to the brothers that ""La familia es todo"" ("Family is everything"). Gustavo Fring's franchise "Los Pollos Hermanos" translates to "The Chicken Brothers". This refers to the fact that the company was co-founded by Gus and a man named Max, with whom he shared a romantic relationship. When Max is killed by Hector Salamanca, Gus vows to destroy the Salamanca family and in particular to humiliate Hector and prolong and draw out his suffering. In the first part of the fifth season, it is explained that Mike Ehrmantraut's intentions for being in this business were to provide for his granddaughter's future, and by his final episode he is conflicted when having to leave her in a park by herself once he has been warned that the police are onto him. During the second part of the fifth season, white supremacist Jack Welker says "don't skimp on family", and he lets Walt live after capturing him in the desert because of love for his nephew Todd Alquist, who has great respect for Walt. Lydia Rodarte-Quayle repeatedly demands that if Mike insists on killing her, that he leave her in her apartment so her daughter can find her, fearful she will think Lydia abandoned her. Much like Walt and Mike, Lydia seems to engage in the meth business in order to provide for her daughter, with actress Laura Fraser stating in an interview that Lydia's daughter is important to how "Lydia justified what she did to herself".


title: Breaking Bad

text: Pride/hubris is a major theme in Walter White's tragic character arc. In an interview with "The Village Voice", showrunner Vince Gilligan identified the tipping point at which Walt "breaks bad" as his prideful decision not to accept Gretchen and Elliott Schwartz's offer to pay for his chemotherapy (season 1, episode 5):


title: Breaking Bad

text: The critically acclaimed episode "Ozymandias" references the Percy Bysshe Shelley poem of the same name, which describes the crumbling legacy of an overly prideful king. The episode draws parallels to the poem, as both antiheroes are left with little to show for their empire-building efforts. Austin Gill of Xavier University stated the episode "evokes the tyrannical aspirations of invincibility and arrogance of Ozymandias himself as represented in Shelley's poem." Douglas Eric Rasmussen of the University of Saskatchewan argued that the "concept of hubris and being punished for grandiose projects that serve an individual's egotism are central aspects of each work." Hank's death marks the beginning of a shift where it becomes increasingly difficult for Walt to continue to insist that he cooks meth for the sake of his family's well-being. By the series finale, Walt finally admits to Skyler that he became Heisenberg for his own ego. "I did it for me. I liked it. I was good at it."


title: Breaking Bad

text: A motif within the second season is the image of a damaged teddy bear and its missing eye. The teddy bear first appears at the end of the music video "Fallacies" for Jesse's band "TwaüghtHammër", which was released as a webisode in February 2009 leading to the second season. The teddy bear can also be spotted on the mural on Jane's bedroom wall during the final episode of the second season, further connecting the crash to Jane. It is seen in flashforwards during four episodes, the titles of which, when put together in order, form the sentence "Seven Thirty-Seven down over ABQ". The flashforwards are shot in black and white, with the sole exception of the pink teddy bear, which is an homage to the film "Schindler's List", where the color red is used to distinguish the coat of a very young girl. At the end of the season, Walter indirectly helps cause the midair collision of two airplanes; the pink teddy bear is then revealed to have fallen out of one of the planes and into the Whites' swimming pool. Vince Gilligan called the plane accident an attempt to visualize "all the terrible grief that Walt has wrought upon his loved ones" and "the judgment of God".


title: Breaking Bad

text: In the first episode of the third season, Walt finds the teddy bear's missing eye in the pool skimmer. Television critic Myles McNutt has called it "a symbol of the damage [Walter] feels responsible for", and "The A.V. Club" commented that "the pink teddy bear continues to accuse." Fans and critics have compared the appearance of the teddy bear's face to an image of Gus Fring's face in the fourth-season finale.


title: Breaking Bad

text: The teddy bear prop was auctioned off, among other memorabilia, on September 29, 2013, the air date of the show finale.


title: Breaking Bad

text: A recurring symbol within "Breaking Bad" is the use of color, particularly the characters' color for wardrobe, being used to represent a character's state of mind or a relationship between characters or to foreshadow an event. In an interview with "Vulture", Vince Gilligan says "Color is important on "Breaking Bad"; we always try to think in terms of it. We always try to think of the color that a character is dressed in, in the sense that it represents on some level their state of mind."


title: Breaking Bad

text: Walter White's name is reminiscent of the poet Walt Whitman. During the series, Gale Boetticher gives Walt a copy of Whitman's "Leaves of Grass". Prior to giving this gift, Boetticher recites "When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer". In the episode "Bullet Points", Hank finds the initials W.W. written in Boetticher's notes, and jokes with Walt that they are his initials, although Walt indicates that they must refer to Whitman.


title: Breaking Bad

text: In the episode "Hazard Pay", Walt finds the copy of "Leaves of Grass" as he is packing up his bedroom, briefly smiles, and leaves it out to read. This occurs at an especially high point in his life, when he feels that things are coming together and he is succeeding in all his ventures. A poem in the book, "Song of Myself", is based on many of these same feelings, furthering the connection between Walt's life and Whitman's poetry. The mid-season finale of season five, "Gliding Over All", is titled after poem 271 of "Leaves of Grass". In the episode, Hank finds "Leaves of Grass" in Walt's bathroom and opens it to the cover page, where he reads the hand-written inscription: "To my other favorite W.W. It's an honour working with you. Fondly G.B." Upon reading this, Hank becomes visibly shocked, realizing the truth about Walter for the first time, which provides the opening premise for the second half of the final season.


title: Breaking Bad

text: "Breaking Bad" received widespread critical acclaim and has been praised by many critics as one of the greatest television shows of all time. On the review aggregator website Metacritic (using a scale of 0–100), the first season scored 73, the second 84, the third 89, the fourth 96, and the fifth 99. The American Film Institute listed "Breaking Bad" as one of the top ten television series of 2008, 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013. In 2013, "TV Guide" ranked it as the ninth greatest TV series of all time. By its end, the series was among the most-watched cable shows on American television, with audience numbers doubling from the fourth season to the fifth. A 2015 survey by "The Hollywood Reporter" of 2,800 actors, producers, directors, and other industry people named "Breaking Bad" as their #2 favorite show. In 2016 and 2022, "Rolling Stone" ranked it third on its list of 100 Greatest TV Shows of All Time. In September 2019, "The Guardian" ranked the show fifth on its list of the 100 best TV shows of the 21st century, describing it as "The show that arguably killed off the antihero drama; nothing since has been able to top the depraved descent made by Walter White (a never-better Bryan Cranston), from milquetoast chemistry teacher to meth overlord, and few have dared to try." In 2021, "Empire" ranked "Breaking Bad" at number one on their list of The 100 Greatest TV Shows of All Time. Allen St. John of "Forbes" called it "The best TV show ever". In 2021, it was voted the third-best TV series of the 21st century by the BBC, as picked by 206 TV experts from around the world.


title: Breaking Bad

text: For the first season, the series saw a generally positive reception. "New York Post" critic Linda Stasi praised the series, particularly the acting of Cranston and Paul, stating "Cranston and Paul are so good, it's astounding. I'd say the two have created great chemistry, but I'm ashamed to say such a cheap thing." Robert Bianco of "USA Today" also praised Cranston and Paul, exclaiming "There is humor in the show, mostly in Walt's efforts to impose scholarly logic on the business and on his idiot apprentice, a role Paul plays very well. But even their scenes lean toward the suspenseful, as the duo learns that killing someone, even in self-defense, is ugly, messy work."


title: Breaking Bad

text: The second season saw critical acclaim. "Entertainment Weekly" critic Ken Tucker stated ""Bad" is a superlatively fresh metaphor for a middle-age crisis: It took cancer and lawbreaking to jolt Walt out of his suburban stupor, to experience life again—to take chances, risk danger, do things he didn't think himself capable of doing. None of this would work, of course, without Emmy winner Cranston's ferocious, funny selflessness as an actor. For all its bleakness and darkness, there's a glowing exhilaration about this series: It's a feel-good show about feeling really bad." "San Francisco Chronicle" Tim Goodman claimed "The first three episodes of Season 2 that AMC sent out continue that level of achievement with no evident missteps. In fact, it looks as if Gilligan's bold vision for "Breaking Bad", now duly rewarded against all odds, has invigorated everyone involved in the project. You can sense its maturity and rising ambition in each episode." Horror novelist Stephen King lauded the series, comparing it to the likes of "Twin Peaks" and "Blue Velvet".


title: Breaking Bad

text: The third season also saw critical acclaim. "Time" proclaimed, "It's a drama that has chosen the slow burn over the flashy explosion, and it's all the hotter for that choice." "Newsday" stated "Breaking Bad" was still TV's best series and it stayed true to itself. Tim Goodman praised the writing, acting, and cinematography, pointing out the "visual adventurousness" of the series. Goodman went on to call the show's visuals "a combination of staggering beauty – the directors make use of numerous wide-angle landscape portraits – and transfixing weirdness." After the finale aired, "The A.V. Club" said that season three was "one of television's finest dramatic accomplishments. And what makes it so exciting – what makes the recognition of the current golden age so pressing – is that the season has not been, as [another reviewer] put it in another context, 'television good.' The heart-in-the-throat quality of this season comes as much from the writers' exhilarating disregard for television conventions as from the events portrayed."


title: Breaking Bad

text: Season four won near-universal critical acclaim. "The Boston Globe" referred to the show as a "taut exercise in withheld disaster" and declared the show "riveting". The "Pittsburgh Post-Gazette" labeled the series "smart and thought provoking that elevates the artistic achievements of the medium". Season four was listed by many critics as one of the best seasons of television in 2011. "Time" listed Walter White's "I am the one who knocks" line as one of the best television lines of 2011. "The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette" listed it as the best series of 2011 while noting that ""Breaking Bad" is that rare TV series that has never made a seriously damaging storytelling misstep." "The A.V. Club" review of the finale summed it up as a "fantastically fitting end for a season that ran in slow motion, starting and continuing with so many crises begging for resolution week after week. Now the decks are cleared, but that doesn't mean anybody is home free. Nothing's ever easy on "Breaking Bad"." The reviewer continued to exalt the season, and proclaimed, "What a season of television – truly something none of us could ever have expected, or claimed we deserved."


title: Breaking Bad

text: Both halves of the fifth season received overwhelming critical acclaim. Following the end of the series, critic Nick Harley summarized his commendation of the show: "Expertly written, virtuosic with its direction, and flawlessly performed, "Breaking Bad" is everything you could want in a drama. Critics will spend the next decade dissecting and arguing about what made it great, but the reasons are endless and already well documented." During the final season, the show also received praise from George R. R. Martin, author of the "A Song of Ice and Fire" novels, particularly the episode "Ozymandias"; Martin commented that "Walter White is a bigger monster than anyone in Westeros." In his review of the second half of season 5, Seth Amitin of IGN stated, "This final batch of "Breaking Bad" is one of the best run of episodes TV has ever offered," and praised "Ozymandias" in particular, referring to it as "maybe the best episode of TV [he's] ever seen". Jonah Goldberg of "National Review" called it "the best show currently on television, and perhaps even the best ever". The veteran actor Sir Anthony Hopkins wrote a letter of praise to Bryan Cranston, telling him that his "performance as Walter White was the best acting I have seen – ever". He lauded the rest of the cast and crew as well. The letter first appeared on Steven Michael Quezada's (who portrayed DEA Agent Steven Gomez) Facebook page, and in spite of it being taken down, the letter soon went viral. In 2013, Guinness World Records named "Breaking Bad" the highest-rated TV series of all time, citing its season 5 Metacritic score of 99 out of 100.


title: Breaking Bad

text: "Breaking Bad" has been accused by some members of law enforcement and the legal community of normalizing or glorifying methamphetamine creation and usage.


title: Breaking Bad

text: "Breaking Bad" premiered on the same night as both the NFC and AFC Championships in the 2008 NFL playoffs, an intentional decision by AMC hoping to capture the adult male viewership immediately following the planned end of the NFC game. The game ran over its time slot, cutting into "Breaking Bad" timeslot in most of America. As a result, the pilot had only about 1.4 million viewers. Coupled with the ongoing writers strike, the first season did not draw as large of a viewership as they expected. However, with subsequent seasons, viewership increased, avoiding the usual trend of downward viewership that most serialized shows had. Ratings further increased by the fourth season as, prior to airing, the previous seasons had been added to Netflix, boosting interest in the show. "Breaking Bad" is considered the first such show to have a renewed burst of interest due to the show being made available on Netflix. The second half of the final season saw record viewership, with the series finale reaching over 10.3 million viewers.


title: Breaking Bad

text: The series received numerous awards and nominations, including 16 Primetime Emmy Awards and 58 nominations, including winning for Outstanding Drama Series in 2013 and 2014. It also won two Peabody Awards, one in 2008 and one in 2013.


title: Breaking Bad

text: For his portrayal of Walter White, Bryan Cranston won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series four times, in 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2014. Cranston also won the TCA Award for Individual Achievement in Drama in 2009 and the Satellite Award for Best Actor – Television Series: Drama in 2008, 2009, and 2010, as well as the Critics' Choice Television Award for Best Actor in a Drama Series and the Saturn Award for Best Actor on Television in 2012.


title: Breaking Bad

text: Aaron Paul won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series in 2010, 2012, and 2014. Paul also won the Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actor on Television in 2010 and 2012. Anna Gunn won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series in 2013 and 2014. For his work on season four, Giancarlo Esposito won the Critics' Choice Television Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Drama Series.


title: Breaking Bad

text: In 2010 and 2012, "Breaking Bad" won the TCA Award for Outstanding Achievement in Drama, as well as the TCA Award for Program of the Year in 2013. In 2009 and 2010, the series won the Satellite Award for Best Television Series – Drama, along with the Saturn Award for Best Syndicated/Cable Television Series in 2010, 2011, and 2012. The series won the in both 2012 and 2013. In 2013, it was named No. 13 in a list of the 101 Best-Written TV Series of All Time by the Writers Guild of America and won, for the first time, the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Drama Series. Overall, the show has won 110 industry awards and has been nominated for 262.


title: Breaking Bad

text: "Variety" held a Q&A with most of the original writing staff to reflect on the show's run, the final season, the writing process, and alternative endings. Along with creator Vince Gilligan, fellow writers and producers Peter Gould, Thomas Schnauz, Gennifer Hutchison, Moira Walley-Beckett, Sam Catlin and George Mastras joined to discuss memories from the show's humble beginnings, character transformations that concluded in the final season as well as surprising developments along the way. For instance, the character of Jesse Pinkman was originally supposed to die halfway through season one in a tragic drug deal gone horribly wrong. The reasoning behind this decision was that Jesse served his purpose "in a meat-and-potatoes, logistical sense. The character would give Walt his entrée into the business" before meeting his demise. However, this was eventually done away with as the story progressed beyond Gilligan's early scripts.


title: Breaking Bad

text: The writers also opened up on their collaborative process and how their form of storytelling evolved with the show. According to writer George Mastras,


title: Breaking Bad

text: The development of certain characters posed challenges. Skyler White became unsympathetic to most viewers in earlier seasons as she was often presented as an obstacle to Walt's ultimate agenda. The writers struggled to change the dynamic and realized that "the only way people were going to like Skyler was if she started going along with what Walt was doing." It was a tricky shift to alter on screen because they didn't want to betray her character so they justified the change by using her past job as a bookkeeper to segue into her helping Walt money launder his cash under the guise of a car wash. Breaking the individual episodes was another form of problem-solving for the writers. They stressed the importance of not letting the "master plan" stop them from staying true to the world they created. There came a point where tracking the characters on a moment-by-moment basis proved to be more useful rather than the general direction of the story. Peter Gould said they would always start with the last thought in a character's head. "Where's Jesse's head at? That was always the prelude to the breakthrough moment, because when you said that, it's usually because we had gotten attached to some big plan or some big set-piece that we thought had to be there, but the characters didn't want to do what we wanted them to do."


title: Breaking Bad

text: Director Rian Johnson worked on three episodes ("Fly", "Fifty-One" and "Ozymandias") and in an interview with IGN shared his memories from behind the camera. He shed some light on the process including the fact that he sat through "tone meetings" with Vince Gilligan. The two of them talked about every dramatic beat in a script, the distinct visual look of the show, and how the tonal shift of each scene had to feel natural while serving the main storyline of the particular episode. Johnson also revealed that he learned so much about working with actors because of his directing of Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul, describing the experience as a "free masterclass."


title: Breaking Bad

text: "Breaking Bad"s success caused numerous spin-offs and a media franchise. This includes a spin-off prequel series, a Spanish-language adaptation, a , a talk show, and a .


title: Breaking Bad

text: Several attempts to create a real restaurant concept after Los Pollos Hermanos have occurred, most notably in 2019, Family Style, Inc., a chain of restaurants in California, Nevada, and Illinois, which secured rights from Sony and with Gilligan's blessing to sell chicken dinners through Uber Eats under the name and branding "Los Pollos Hermanos" in a three-year deal.


title: Breaking Bad

text: Law enforcement authorities have reported occasional instances of seizing blue crystal methamphetamine in drug-related arrests and raids. The appearance of "blue meth" in real-world drug use has been attributed to "Breaking Bad's" popularity.


title: Breaking Bad

text: In 2015, series creator Vince Gilligan publicly requested fans of the series to stop reenacting a scene from "Caballo sin Nombre" in which Walter angrily throws a pizza onto his own roof after Skyler refuses to let him inside; this came after complaints from the home's real-life owner. Cranston reprised his role of the character in a commercial for Esurance which aired during Super Bowl XLIX, one week before the premiere of "Breaking Bad" spin-off "Better Call Saul".


title: Breaking Bad

text: A "Breaking Bad" fan group placed a paid obituary for Walter White in the "Albuquerque Journal", October 4, 2013. On October 19, 2013, a mock funeral procession (including a hearse and a replica of Walter's meth lab RV) and service for the character was held at Albuquerque's Sunset Memorial Park cemetery. A headstone was placed with a photo of Cranston as Walter. While some residents were unhappy with the makeshift gravesite for closure with the show, tickets for the event raised nearly $17,000 for a local charity called Healthcare for the Homeless.


title: Breaking Bad

text: Gilligan and Sony Television Pictures commissioned and donated a bronze statue of Walter and Jesse to the city of Albuquerque in July 2022, which is on display at the Albuquerque Convention Center.


title: Breaking Bad

text: In May 2015, the "New Mexico Law Review" published a collection of eight articles by legal scholars, each dedicated to dissecting legal issues presented by "Breaking Bad". The articles discussed issues such as whether the attorney–client privilege would protect communications with Saul Goodman, and whether Walter White could have filed a lawsuit to force his way back into Gray Matter Technologies.


title: Steve Jobs

text: Steven Paul Jobs (February 24, 1955 – October 5, 2011) was an American entrepreneur, industrial designer, media proprietor, and investor. He was the co-founder, chairman, and CEO of Apple; the chairman and majority shareholder of Pixar; a member of The Walt Disney Company's board of directors following its acquisition of Pixar; and the founder, chairman, and CEO of NeXT. He is widely recognized as a pioneer of the personal computer revolution of the 1970s and 1980s, along with his early business partner and fellow Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak.


title: Steve Jobs

text: Jobs was born in San Francisco to a Syrian father and German-American mother. He was adopted shortly after his birth. Jobs attended Reed College in 1972 before withdrawing that same year. In 1974, he traveled through India seeking enlightenment before later studying Zen Buddhism. He and Wozniak co-founded Apple in 1976 to sell Wozniak's Apple I personal computer. Together the duo gained fame and wealth a year later with production and sale of the Apple II, one of the first highly successful mass-produced microcomputers. Jobs saw the commercial potential of the Xerox Alto in 1979, which was mouse-driven and had a graphical user interface (GUI). This led to the development of the unsuccessful Apple Lisa in 1983, followed by the breakthrough Macintosh in 1984, the first mass-produced computer with a GUI. The Macintosh introduced the desktop publishing industry in 1985 with the addition of the Apple LaserWriter, the first laser printer to feature vector graphics.


title: Steve Jobs

text: In 1985, Jobs was forced out of Apple after a long power struggle with the company's board and its then-CEO, John Sculley. That same year, Jobs took a few Apple employees with him to found NeXT, a computer platform development company that specialized in computers for higher-education and business markets. In addition, he helped to develop the visual effects industry when he funded the computer graphics division of George Lucas's Lucasfilm in 1986. The new company was Pixar, which produced the first 3D computer-animated feature film "Toy Story" (1995) and went on to become a major animation studio, producing over 25 films since.


title: Steve Jobs

text: In 1997, Jobs returned to Apple as CEO after the company's acquisition of NeXT. He was largely responsible for reviving Apple, which was on the verge of bankruptcy. He worked closely with English designer Jony Ive to develop a line of products that had larger cultural ramifications, beginning with the "Think different" advertising campaign and leading to the Apple Store, App Store (iOS), iMac, iPad, iPod, iPhone, iTunes, and iTunes Store. In 2001, the original Mac OS was replaced with the completely new Mac OS X (now known as macOS), based on NeXT's NeXTSTEP platform, giving the operating system a modern Unix-based foundation for the first time. In 2003, Jobs was diagnosed with a pancreatic neuroendocrine tumor. He died of respiratory arrest related to the tumor on October 5, 2011, at the age of 56. In 2022, he was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.


title: Steve Jobs

text: Steven Paul Jobs was born in San Francisco, California, on February 24, 1955, to Joanne Carole Schieble and Abdulfattah Jandali (). His cousin, Bassma Al Jandaly, maintains that his birth name was Abdul Lateef Jandali. He was adopted by Clara (née Hagopian) and Paul Reinhold Jobs.