The first Nobody trailer shows a vengeful and violent Bob Odenkirk basically being John Wick. A notable comedy figurehead of the late '80s and early '90s, Odenkirk got his start as a writer on Saturday Night Live, where he worked alongside such icons as Conan O'Brien, Adam Sandler, and Chris Farley. He wrote for and performed on several TV series in the early '90s before co-creating alongside David Cross the seminal sketch comedy series Mr. Show with Bob and David, which featured a murderer's row of future comedy stars and whose format would prove highly influential on later shows like Key & Peele and Kroll Show. Most contemporary audiences know Odenkirk for his more dramatic work over the last decade, primarily his role as Saul Goodman on the AMC shows Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, both of which rank among the most acclaimed TV series of all time.
His dramatic yet quippy role as Saul Goodman has also widened Odenkirk's acting range into more violent territory, which became apparent in January 2018 when he was announced as the lead in the new action thriller Nobody. Odenkirk plays Hutch Mansell, a timid family man who disappoints his family after he refuses to defend them from home invaders. The incident resurfaces his skillfully violent past as an assassin and forces him to take on the dangerous mob going after him and his family. If that premise sounds similar to an extremely popular action franchise, it's probably because the two share some of the same creative minds.
Nearly three years after the film's initial announcement, audiences now get a look at the first red band Nobody trailer, which shows Odenkirk stepping directly into the gun-wielding, ultra-violent shoes of prolific hitman John Wick. Nobody was written by Derek Kolstad, who penned the scripts for all three John Wick movies, and produced by David Leitch, the uncredited co-director of the first John Wick alongside Chad Stahelski. Even the trailer's action, which depicts a bloodied Odenkirk unloading machine guns and engaging in hand-to-hand combat, proves the Wick DNA is all there in front of and behind the camera. Check out the Nobody trailer and poster below:
As with nearly every other 2020 theatrical release, Nobody was delayed multiple times due to the coronavirus pandemic. Universal Pictures originally wanted to release it on August 14 but pushed it back six months to February 26, 2021. The studio moved the movie up one week before pushing it back to the now confirmed date of February 26. Per the end of the Nobody trailer, Universal seems committed to a strict theatrical release unlike its recent titles The King of Staten Island and You Should Have Left, which went straight to video-on-demand.
Regardless of how it's distributed, Nobody looks poised for success given how successful the John Wick formula has proven in recent years. Its basic premise of an angry protagonist dealing with their violent past already worked well for The Equalizer and Atomic Blonde, both of which received solid reviews and cleared the $100-million mark at the box office. Though Odenkirk may not have the cinematic star power of Denzel Washington or Charlize Theron, he recently mentioned that he trained for two years before cameras started rolling, demonstrating total commitment to his Nobody role. Other TV stars have shifted surprisingly smoothly into the action genre, so it would be equally surprising to see Odenkirk become another great action star within the next few years.
Source: Universal
