Fox casts Corey Hawkins for the lead role in the upcoming 24 reboot.
Fox has just found their new 24 star.
The reboot of the iconic action series has cast Straight Outta Compton breakout Corey Hawkins in the leading role.
Taking over for previous series star Kiefer Sutherland, Hawkins will play an entirely new character named Eric Carter in 24: Legacy. “Strong and smart, Eric came from a very rough background and turned his life around in the Army Rangers,” reads the official description. “Now back home in Virginia with his wife Nicole, he’s pulled back into action as his past comes looking for him.”
Carter will team up with the Counter Terrorist Unit to try and prevent an attack on American soil.
None of the original 24 cast is expected to appear in the new version, which Fox ordered to pilot earlier this month.
Unlike the first version of the series, where Jack Bauer (Sutherland) was basically a lone wolf lead character for nine seasons, the new 24 also has strong features a female co-lead role. If given a series order, 24: Legacy will also play looser with the show’s original “real time” format, which 12 episodes instead of 24.
Hawkins had a storyline on AMC’s The Walking Dead last year and a part of the action movie NOn-Stop.
He also played Dr. Dre in the critically acclaimed biodoc Straight Outta Compton. Hawkins was also cast in the upcoming film Kong: Skull Island.
It is important to point out that this month’s Television Critics Association’s press tour in Pasadena, Fox Television chairman and CEO Dana Walden and Gary Newman said they sought out a diverse actor for the leading role. “We wanted [the star] to be as different from Jack Bauer as possible, whether that’s an African-American or a Latino actor,” Walden said, with Newman adding: “As envisioned, the lead character would be diverse, so that will be our first effort in casting. As always, we’re going to cast the best actor we can find for the role. As you can imagine, bringing 24 back, we want to really try to create some distinction and make this feel different than Jack Bauer’s 24, so having a diverse actor in that lead role I think would be helpful in doing that.”
Meanwhile, Kiefer Sutherland is working with ABC for a new show called Designated Survivor, where he’ll play a man suddenly handed the presidency after a catastrophic attack during the State of the Union address.
