So long, Jack! Fox is developing a new version of its hit action series 24, but it won't star series mainstay Kiefer Sutherland, the network announced Friday, January 15.
Fox has ordered a pilot for 24: Legacy, focusing on a military hero returning to U.S. soil. The new series borrows the ticking-clock premise of the original show that launched in 2001 and ran for eight seasons, followed by 2014's 12-episode 24: Live Another Day. But Sutherland's Jack Bauer, who anchored the previous seasons, is not set to appear.
"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 story lines, with each episode representing one hour of an eventful day," the network said in a press release.
The announcement was made at the Television Critics Association's winter press tour in Pasadena, California, where network head Dana Walden revealed that the lead character's name is Eric Carter, and he will be joined by a female colead who formerly ran the Counter Terrorist Unit.
"It doesn't feel like it is fully replicating the original in terms of how much Jack Bauer carries by himself," Walden said of the new series. "But it's a very prominently featured lead."
Walden said that there are currently no plans for the original series' stars to pop up in the follow-up, although that could happen down the road. Sutherland is set to play the U.S. president in the upcoming ABC thriller series Designated Survivor, which received a straight-to-series order in December.
"There's a time jump," Walden said. "This is a new organization. It's a new CTU, a new cast of characters. It's a completely different story in terms of the special ops group that we're focusing on. It's a very contemporary-feeling story about the potential to activate sleeper cells in the United States, and radicalizing Americans. It's a whole new story."
Walden and fellow exec Gary Newman also told reporters that 24: Legacy was likely to feature an African American or Latino actor in the lead role. The pilot is set to film this winter, with no plan yet mentioned for the potential series' premiere date.
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