’24’: Talks Underway For New Iteration Of The Franchise To Leave CTU

UPDATED: 24 may get a reinvention, with the real-time format moving away from terrorism. During the Fox executive session at the summer TCA press tour, chairman Dana Walden revealed that the network and producing studio 20th Century Fox TV has started preliminary discussions with 24 executive producers Howard Gordon and Brian Grazer andc o-creator Joel Surnow.

” We are really exploring what the future, the next version of 24 might be, maybe in more anthological storytelling,” she said, adding that they had met with the 24 trio who “have a very exciting idea that I thought was very compelling.” Walden declined to elaborate further, noting that the project is in very early stages.

I hear that there are actually two ideas, one that originated from Surnow, who would write, and one that Gordon is working on with other writers. I hear it is quite possible that Fox may put the two ideas on parallel tracks, developing both, with one of the projects possibly going to pilot before the official pilot season next year.

One thing that both ideas have in common — they will not have the signature CTU setting of all previous incarnations. “The same kind of ticking clock format and apply it to something else,” Fox Entertainment president David Madden said. “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 proposed new 24 is not genre, and it doesn’t deal with a pandemic. “I think that partly what is exciting is, we’re opening up the possibility of it being anything where that 24-hour clock is at the most critical period of a story, so I don’t want to limit them,” Walden said after the session. “It can only be an action-oriented show, maybe not. It can only be an emotional thing. The opportunity is for them to think their biggest thoughts.”

Walden also was asked whether they want the new reboot to be a commentary on the new administration, something the original series had done. “I would not want it to go straight at that,” she said. “I really frankly think people are sick of it, and that great creators find way to capture the tone of the nation and weave that into a story that’s not head-on, so I would hope to be able to capture in a way that 24 has historically, the tone of the nation, of the viewing audience and whether that’s through points of view of different characters, I can tell you it won’t be about an election, it won’t be about the current administration, it won’t be that head-on.”

Walden also talked about the recent decision to cancel 24: Legacy after one season. “The more we thought about it, it felt like where we left off, to continue to tell stories about these exact characters in the exact same work environment, it felt very similar to the original series,” she said.