Disappointing news today, but not entirely surprising – the 24 movie is not happening anytime soon.
EXCLUSIVE: I’m hearing that fans of the Fox series 24 are going to have to continue waiting for the long-awaited 24 feature film. 20th Century Fox isn’t going forward with the film this year. It hadn’t been greenlit, but it was scheduled to get going in late March, with Kiefer Sutherland jumping into Jack Bauer mode when his new series Touch goes on hiatus in April. The studio was zeroing in on a director — Antoine Fuqua was the most recent conversation I’d heard of — when the decision was made this week to not go forward, at least this year.
There are rumors this came down to budget and that Sutherland is upset because he was sparked up to resume his role as the rough-and-tumble government operative, who over eight seasons prevented numerous apocalyptic terror attacks. Studio insiders tell me Fox wasn’t convinced it had enough time to complete the film before Sutherland has to go back to work on Touch‘s second season, and didn’t want to rush and neither did Sutherland. The picture is being produced by Imagine Entertainment’s Brian Grazer and Sutherland and they have a script written by Billy Ray, and polished by Mark Bomback. It’s ready to go.