Kiefer Sutherland’s Jack Bauer returned to the screen this week as the event series 24: Live Another Day got underway with a special double-bill [read our review here], and during an interview with Screen Daily at the UK launch of the revived series the star spoke about the planned 24 movie, which obviously failed to materialise…
“We had a look at [a movie]. There are multiple reasons why that didn’t happen and I don’t know all of them. 20th Century Fox is a very big company. We work with the television side. The film side is a whole other area. But in season 8, when [Jack] looks up into that camera and has a 15-minute window to ‘go dark’ and disappear, that was a setup for a potential movie. I think one of the reasons why Howard [Gordon] wanted to do these 12 episodes and where the idea came for him to write was to end it and bring a sense of closure to the show. That was a big part of it. So I don’t see a film shaping itself around what we’re doing right now.”
Sutherland then went on to discuss the small screen revival, stating that: “The last thing you want to do is damage the legacy of a show you’ve put to bed. We had put this to bed for a reason: Howard Gordon, our lead writer, was tired. He had written 196 episodes – the equivalent of 100 movies – in an eight-year period. That gave me pause for thought. But now we’re almost finished I’m so glad, and arguably we’ve made the best season ever.”
