Jack Bauer may never die — though the network says that “24” will end this May.
The tireless government agent played by Kiefer Sutherland is headed for the movies, says the show’s producer, Howard Gordon.
And you can’t have a movie if Jack Bauer gets killed in the hot series’ final hour.
The film — to be written by the same screenwriter who did “State of Play” and “Shattered Glass” — could be out as soon “as early as next year, depending on how things come together,” producer Howard Gordon told The Hollywood Reporter.
Most importantly, he says, a movie will free “24” from its restrictive, real-time format — the thing that made the show so unique.
After several years, the 24-episodes-in-24-hours gimmick lost its novelty and made the series predictable.
“We’ve done everything we feel we can do with that character in this format,” Gordon said.
“The opportunity [of a movie] is not to use the real-time aspect and also to do it on a scale the TV show never allowed.”
Gordon says the movie won’t be a prequel — which is just about a guarantee that Bauer will have to survive the series’ finale in May.
Movies made from TV series have, as a rule, waited a few years before being released.
The “Sex & the City” movie didn’t come out until four years after the series’ finale in February 2004.
The first “Star Trek” movie was 10 years after the series ended in 1969.
But Gordon says he hopes the “24” movie “would happen sooner rather than later. And I think that’s Kiefer’s feeling, too.”
The show’s stars and crew have been working all year on the assumption that this would be its last season, it now appears.
Gordon said over the weekend that he had not even suggested to Fox a possible plot for year nine during the network’s traditional pitch season.
“We couldn’t come up with something that really satisfied us,” he said.