Kiefer Sutherland frustrated, less optimistic about ’24’ movie schedule

Jack Bauer 24 Season 1 Pilot

Things have been looking promising for the 24 movie lately, with a finished screenplay by Mark Bomback that Kiefer said he loved, and producer Brian Grazer stating they were casting the main villain.

But things appear to have hit a snag with Kiefer Sutherland revealing in an interview from yesterday that he’s frustrated with all the delays and less optimistic about being able to start filming soon.

We have a script that’s fantastic. The difficulty right now is that the schedule for Touch is really demanding. We will finish in the end of April, I think at one point it was supposed to be a little earlier than that. And then we would start up [on the movie] quite quickly. So it’s trying to find the time in the middle to make the film. I was probably more optimistic about starting in May a couple weeks ago than I am right now.

But it is definitely something I’ve been trying to do for five years. I’ve had such an amazing experience on 24. I loved the character, I love the genre – it’s really my favorite genre of film, which is that of the thriller. It’s something I deeply, deeply want to do. And it’s very frustrating to keep kind of running into these hurdles and blocks.

Kiefer had previously blamed Touch for “having to push the movie back about seven months” and now it looks to be responsible for yet another delay.

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I hate to say “I told you so” on this one, but I mentioned this possibility on this site about a month back or so, mainly due to the fact they were planning to shoot in late April/early May but had still to hire a director or begin active pre-production yet.

I fully understand and share Kiefer’s frustration, but I think this could be a good thing in the long-term; if they push it back to next year, they’ll have more time to get the movie ready for production, resulting in a better film overall than if they rushed it, plus if ‘Touch’ is not renewed for a third season, then Kiefer and co will have all the more time to shoot the ’24’ movie than they would have had if they had to sandwich it in between seasons of ‘Touch’… let’s keep the faith people, better a truly great ’24’ movie in 2013 or 2014 than a good rushed one in 2012!

I agree Gerry. I can wait. I just want this to be perfect by all means.

Likewise, as much as I hate waiting I really think they should take their time on this and make it great.

According to Kiefer Sutherland in a more recent interview, the ’24’ movie may begin shooting in May after all, but the way he talked about it, it sounds like they’re determined to get it done between seasons of ‘Touch’ come hell or high water, even though they have yet to hire a director, and it’s a mere TWO months away, although I believe they have been putting the movie together behind the scenes quietly, so once the director is hired, I think everything will fall into place remarkably quickly.

Kiefer didn’t say exactly how long they will have between seasons of ‘Touch’ to shoot the movie, as long as it’s at least 13 weeks (which will give them between 78 and 80-something days for filming), then they’ll do well, but I certainly wouldn’t want any less time than that… that is, if they want the ’24’ movie to BE a movie and not a theatrically-released feature-length episode (like the television movie ‘…Redemption’)!

I just hope that they announce the name of the director in the next couple of weeks so they can start pre-production right away given the limited time they have until filming starts. I also think it’s a good idea if FOX could somehow shorten the first season of Touch or delay production of the second season so they have more time making the movie and get it right.

The first season of ‘Touch’ is a shortened one, BMAN dude, it has only thirteen episodes and was a mid-season replacement, although even if it had been a full season, Kiefer Sutherland would have wrapped filming on it exactly the same time as now, so it doesn’t matter in that regard. As for pushing back the filming on the second season, I think FOX did that in 1997 for the fifth season of ‘The X-Files’ in order to give Duchovny and Anderson more time to shoot the movie that summer, so it could easily be done, I just wish someone would actually ask Kiefer exactly when he would have to restart filming ‘Touch’, that way we would know how much time they’ll have for the ’24’ movie…