We’re in the golden age of TV reboots, and the good news just keeps on coming.
Fox has officially announced (after teasing it for over a year) that cult-favorite dramas Prison Break and 24 are both coming back! The network’s bosses Dana Walden and Gary Newman announced the long-awaited news today at the 2016 TCA Winter Press Tour. While Prison Break is coming back as a sequel, there’s actually a twist when it comes to the way that 24 is being rebooted.
Prison Break is returning as an event series, reuniting the original series stars Wentworth Miller and Dominic Purcell as the prison-escaping brothers Michael Scofield and Lincoln Burrows, as well as the original producing team. Series creators Paul T. Scheuring, Neal Moritz, Marty Adelstein and Dawn Olmstead will all return to executive-produce the new series, with Scheuring serving as showrunner/writer. However, besides knowing that this will be a continuation of the story (but before Michael’s death in season four), that’s all we know so far. Additional details will be announced at a later date.
The original series ran on Fox from 2005-2009, and it centered on two brothers, one (Miller) determined to prove the other’s (Purcell) innocence and save him from death row by hatching an elaborate plan to escape from prison. Its first season earned Golden Globe Award nominations for Best Television Series–Drama and Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series–Drama for Miller. It also won the People’s Choice Award for Favorite New TV Drama.
As for 24, the network has ordered the pilot 24: Legacy, a new spinoff. The original 24 creative team Howard Gordon, Manny Coto and Evan Katz will serve as executive producers on the new pilot, which will feature an all-new cast of characters, including an African-American lead to take on the Jack Bauer-like role. However, 24: Legacy will still retain the original DNA of the series with the real-time, fast-paced format with split screens and complex interweaving story lines, with each episode representing one hour of a single day.
The 24: Legacy pilot will revolve around Eric Carter, a military hero, when he returns to the U.S. and the trouble that follows him back, compelling him to ask CTU for help saving his life and stopping what could be one of the largest-scale terror attacks on American soil. Hey, even with a new cast of characters, this is still 24 after all. The pilot films this winter and casting is currently underway. If ordered to series, it would run for 12 episodes.
“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.
“As envisioned, the lead character would be diverse, so that will be our first effort in casting,” Newman added. “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.”
“There’s also a female co-lead who is a former head of CTU,” Walden added. “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.”
The Emmy Award-winning drama franchise was most recently revived as 24: Live Another Day, a 12-episode event series that aired back in summer of 2014. It reunited the original series stars Kiefer Sutherland, Mary Lynn Rajskub, Kim Raver and William Devane.
24 originally aired from 2001-2010 and was nominated for a total of 73 Emmy Awards, winning for Outstanding Drama Series in 2006.
Are you excited to see these two cult-favorite shows return in new ways? Let us know what you think in the comments section below!
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Images: Fox
Both Prison Break and 24: Legacy are still in development and haven’t been slated for premieres yet.
