The ads for Sundance Channel’s new drama Rectify have been selling it (understandably) as “from the producers of Breaking Bad,” and when they use that phrase, one of the two people they’re talking about is Mark Johnson. An Oscar-winning producer with a long and impressive list of credits (including Diner, Donnie Brasco, Galaxy Quest, The Notebook, and Rain Man), he’d done two films — Bugsy and A Perfect World — with a young actor named Ray McKinnon. Recently, he says, “on a whim, I realized I hadn’t talked to him in a while and I thought I should just give him a call. I reached him in Arkansas, and what a great coincidence, he had just finished a TV pilot. And he was aware of our show Breaking Bad at that point and he said, ‘I’d love for you to take a look at it.’ And he sent it to me, and it’s one of those things, one of those good moments, as a producer where you just instinctively know that something’s special there.” … Read More