Jack Is Back; "24" Will Return to Fox Next Summer as an Event Series

Fox has confirmed that it will revive “24” next summer as a limited series. The "24" revival will be followed by “Sixth Sense” director M. Night Shyamalan’s event series “Wayward Pines.” The innovative real-time thriller wrapped its run on Fox in 2010 after eight seasons. Kiefer Sutherland will be return to the central role of Agent Jack Bauer. Sutherland starred on the Fox drama “Touch” for the past two seasons. Fox dropped “Touch” last week.

As part of the Fox’s strategy to push for more event programming, the network plans bring the 20th Century Fox TV/Imagine TV series back next May. It will be rolled out over twelve weeks.

Fox Chairman Kevin Reilly said, “Jack’s back. Howard [Gordon] always had the idea of doing a feature film. But they all agreed, `24′ being compressed to two hours is not `24.’”

Reilly said doesn’t see a 12-episode order as erosive to “24′s” real-time essence. He explained “The spine of the `24′ season was really 12 hours. Those were where the big events occurred, and others were the connective tissues in between.” Reilly says the series will still unfold chronologically, but it will “skip hours.” For example, it will go “8am, then to 10am.”

Reilly says that while “24” will not be a full-blown series, it still has serious “franchise-ability” and could return again “18, 20 months later” for another event series after next summer’s run. “We’re getting just about all of who’s who of Hollywood coming to the door wanting to participate. There’s literally not a week in my job where someone doesn’t ask about ’24′ and ‘Would you ever bring it back?’”

Reilly said the network’s push for more event programming will possess “big scope, top talent and top marketing budget.”

Brian Grazer of Imagine Entertainment was instrumental in bringing “24″ back into production.

 by Tony Sokol