Bryan Cranston’s new TV project is ‘The Dangerous Book for Boys’

Bryan Cranston is most famous for playing a high-school chemistry teacher who manufactures methamphetamine in the Emmy-winning television series “Breaking Bad.”

Now Cranston’s production company has optioned the popular kids’ book “The Dangerous Book for Boys,” with an eye to developing it as a comedy television series, Variety reports. The series will follow three boys as they “use their imaginations to navigate growing up without a father,” Variety writes.

The book by Conn and Hal Iggulden is a kind of guidebook and almanac that includes instructions on how to perform coin tricks, and how to make go-carts, tree houses, and paper airplanes that fly long distances. The book also includes articles on famous battles, historical figures (like polar explorers) and the Navajo code talkers, among many others.

“In this age of video games and cellphones, there must still be a place for knots, tree houses, and stories of incredible courage,” the authors write in an introduction titled “I Didn’t Have This Book When I Was a Boy.” The book is also popular with girls, including this writer’s 9-year-old daughter, who has bookmarked several pages, including “Making a Paper Hat, Boat and Water Bomb” and “Dog Tricks.”

The book was first published in the U.K. in 2006, and in the U.S. by Harper Collins in 2007.

The television series is being developed by Cranston’s Moon Shot Entertainment. According to Variety, the production company is looking for projects with “unusual perspectives and storytelling techniques.”

Before “Breaking Bad,” Cranston starred as the father of four trouble-making sons in the popular TV comedy series “Malcolm in the Middle.”