24 Movie to Film in Early 2012

The 24 movie will begin shooting in spring. 20th Century Fox have given the go-ahead to the big screen spin-off of the popular TV series - which came to an end after eight series earlier this year - with a proposed schedule hinged on when renowned writer Mark Bomback delivers a new version of Billy Ray's original screen play.

Mark is expected to submit his script early in the new year, meaning filming on the movie - which will see Kiefer Sutherland return to the role of Counter Terrorism Unit (CTU) agent Jack Bauer - can begin a few months later. According to Deadline.com, the studio currently has around five directors in mind to helm the project, which has been in the pipeline for several years.

Kiefer has previously spoken of his "excitement" about the film, which will see 24 change from its usual real-time format in order to cope with the limitations of cinema: "It is going to be a two-hour representation of a 24 hour day, so we were not going to be restrained by the real time aspect of the TV show. With the TV show we always had to have the crisis come to us because we couldn't move. Twice we put Jack on a plane and it was a disaster. This will be different - it will be very feasible to get from Eastern Europe to England in the course of 24 hours! And the crisis can be more personal - it doesn't have to be a huge bomb, it doesn't have to take out the rest of the world. It's very exciting."

Kiefer Sutherland Talks About 24 Movie

Now that 24 has officially been canceled by FOX (and there are no plans to resurrect the series on NBC), production on a big screen version can now go full steam ahead.

In a recent interview with Variety, star Kiefer Sutherland gave us a hint as to what we should expect for Jack Bauer and company in the next chapter:

Billy Ray is in the process of writing it right now. I’m very excited about the idea. He’s a fantastic writer. I know he’s been working with Howard recently. I’m very excited about the opportunity, and singularly because it’s a two-hour representation of a 24-hour day. So for the first time, it will be very feasible in this 24 hours to go from England to Russia, or from China to Japan, depending on where they choose to set it. Before on the TV show, the crisis had to come to us, because the best we could do was get across town. And the two times we ever put Jack Bauer in a plane, it just didn’t work. So it alleviates a huge hurdle that real time writing presented for us.

No target date for the 24 movie has yet been announced.

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