Fox’s 24 spinoff will feature a Black or Hispanic actor as the lead role.
Producers seeking nonwhite actor to replace Kiefer Sutherland
It’s official: Fox is rebooting the 24 franchise. But, this time around the hit TV show’s spinoff will have an all-new cast, with producer looking for an African-American actor to take over the longtime series star Kiefer Sutherland.
Fox has ordered a TV pilot for 24: Legacy, a new series franchise starter that contains many of the original features that launched 24 for nine seasons on Fox: “The pilot will feature an all-new cast of characters and retain the real-time, pulse-pounding, fast-paced format with split screens and complex interweaving storylines, with each episode representing one hour of an eventful day.”
The show’s original producers Howard Gordon, Manny Coto and Evan Katz will return as the show’s executive producers.
This ultimately means that Jack Bauer played by Sutherland has firmly been written off the franchise. Sutherland has recently been cast in a new ABC TV series called Designated Survivor where he will play a man suddenly becomes the President after a terrorist attack during the State of the Union address.
the upcoming 24 reboot is about a military ero, “Eric Carter,” who returns to the United States and trouble follows him back to the states, which forces him to ask the Counter Terrorism Unit for help in saving his family, and stopping a major terrorist attack.
The pilot is going to start filming in the next few weeks and while casting is still underway, Fox is looking for an African American or Latino man to play “Eric Carter”. Fox TV chairmain and CEO Dana Walden and Gary Newman said the following about their casting decision:
“We wanted [the star] to be as different from Jack Bauer as possible, whether that’s an African-American or a Latino actor,”
“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.”
A series will feature 12 episodes like the 2014 reboot Live Another Day, rather than the strict and time sensitive 24-episode format of the original series. “That’s something we discussed for years, ‘It’s 24 — it has to be 24 episodes,’ ” Walden said. “I don’t think any of us believe that a 24-episode arc in this day and age is the way to go.”
In addition, producers plan on changing the format and instead of having a lone wolf they envision “Eric Carter” having a partner and paired with a female co-lead. “There’s also a female co-lead who is a former head of CTU,” said Fox Television Chairman and CEO Dana Walden at the Television Critics Association in Pasadena on Friday. “It doesn’t feel like it is fully replicating the original in terms of how much Jack Bauer carried by himself, but it’s a very prominently featured lead.”
Walden also told reporters that there will be a time jump in the show’s storyline and that Legacy will focus on sleeper cells radicalizing Americans. “It’s a new CTU, a new cast of characters,” she said. “It’s a completely different story in terms of the special ops groups that we’re focusing on. It’s a very contemporary feeling story about the potential to activate new sleeper cells in the United States and radicalizing Americans. It’s a whole new story. There are nods in the pilot to prior CTU agents, there are a couple photos that will feel reminiscent of the original, but no ongoing [returning] characters.”
This news comes as CBS announced that they are not looking for a white actress to play Nancy Drew and NBC’s Shades of Blue creator saying that the white man’s 15 minutes are finally up. Ultimately showcasing the change in Hollywood’s diversity policy.
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