Over the course of eight-seasons, audiences were thrilled by the high-stakes adventures of counter-terrorist agent Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland) which played out in real-time and dealt with terrorist attacks, assassination attempts, government conspiracies, and more. The eighth season brought the long-running series to a close, but rumblings of a feature-film, revival series, or even a spin-off kept the franchise alive. Jack Bauer would return in 2014 for 24: Live Another Day, a twelve-episode event series, and a spin-off soon followed which starred Corey Hawkins (The Walking Dead) as Eric Carter, an ex-Army Ranger. However, 24: Legacy was cancelled after a single season, leaving the 24 franchise ripe for reinvention.
Deadline reports that Twentieth Century Fox is developing a new incarnation of 24 which will shift the focus away from counter-terrorism and towards criminal justice. It's said that the series will continue to embrace the real-time format and will feature a female lead, who will be a prosecutor who "uncovers a legal conspiracy and has to work against the clock to save a death row inmate facing imminent execution whom she had helped prosecute but may be innocent." It's also possible that this new take on the 24 franchise will take the form of an anthology series, with each new season featuring a new world full of new characters. Fox Television chairman Dana Walden said as much during the Television Critics Association press-tour this summer:
We are really exploring what the future, the next version of 24 might be, maybe in more anthological storytelling… The same kind of ticking-clock format but apply it to something else. It will have the same urgency but may not be set in the CTU, it will have same style and urgency but in a different venue.
The new 24 project has received a script commitment and Twentieth Century Fox has tapped Jeremy Doner (The Killing) to pen write the script alongside Howard Gordan (Homeland). Fox is obviously loathe to leave the 24 franchise behind, but this new direction could bring new life to the series.
What do you folks think? Can 24 grow beyond Jack Bauer and the CTU?