Today, during the Television Critics Association’s 2023 Winter Press Tour, AMC announced the release date for their upcoming series Lucky Hank starring AMC regular and Better Call Saul frontman Bob Odenkirk. The eight-episode midlife crisis tale is set to arrive on AMC and AMC+ on March 19.
Lucky Hank is based on the 1997 novel Straight Man by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Richard Russo and was originally going to share the "Straight Man" title with its source material before getting a name change earlier this month. The story is told in the first person by William Henry Devereaux Jr. (Odenkirk), the unlikely interim chairman of the English department of the extremely underfunded Railton College found in the rust belt of Pennsylvania. As Devereaux finds himself in the middle of a midlife crisis, he must do everything in his power to keep the struggling school afloat. Emmy-nominated Mireille Enos (The Killing) is also set to star in the series as Lily Devereaux, the wife of Odenkirk's character who is described as both "grounded" and "unflappable." With Hank's life slowly coming apart, Lily begins to look back at the choices she’s made and decides to explore other opportunities for herself, all while doing everything she can to keep the pair's adult daughter on track.
The announcement of the release date also came with a short teaser trailer featuring Odenkirk. The 15-second trailer focuses on Devereaux's face, sporting a groomed beard and glasses, as the camera slowly zooms in on his face, and he makes several looks of anger and disgust. The trailer features a voiceover from Devereaux, where he says, "I've always been a difficult man. I specialize in minor strife and insignificant irritation. That's my lane." The trailer heads by showing the door to his Chair of the English Department door with a goose walking around.
This series will mark Odenkirk's third series with AMC, having portrayed everyone's favorite slippery lawyer Saul Goodman in both Breaking Bad and its prequel series, the aforementioned Better Call Saul, the latter of which netted him Emmy nominations for best lead actor in a drama series. Aaron Zelman (Silicon Valley, The Killing) and Paul Lieberstein (The Office, The Newsroom), who will also act as directors along with Odenkirk and Peter Farrelly (Green Book), serve as the series showrunners with the novel's original author Russo serving as an executive producer. Other executive producers on the series include Zelman, Lieberstein, Odenkirk, Farrelly, Mark
Johnson (Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul, Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire) Naomi Odenkirk, and Marc Provissiero (PEN15).
Lucky Hank will premiere on AMC and AMC+ on March 19. You can check out the brand-new teaser trailer for the upcoming series down below.