The big screen version of 24 has apparently fallen apart, and Jack Bauer’s none too pleased.
Yes, there was going to be a movie of 24, but now reports say it’s not going to get made, and Keifer Sutherland is not happy he won’t be playing Jack Bauer again. Why did it fall apart? Money apparently, and appropriately enough, there was also a matter of time.
According to The Hollywood Reporter and The Wrap, Fox was going to make the 24 movie for $30 million, which is low budget by today’s standards, but producers Imagine Entertainment wanted to spend more like $50-60 million, and Keifer Sutherland was offered $2 million up front, plus a generous backend deal.
Another report claimed he was offered a mere million to star, and yet Sutherland wanted $5 million for the film.
The movie had to be made while Sutherland’s off from his show Touch, and if the movie couldn’t be made shot in that window, 24 would have to be pushed back to next summer. And Fox also didn’t want 24 to grow stale in the pop culture firmament, like The X Files did. The Wrap reports that Keifer is very PO’d that 24 fell apart, as it was indeed in pre-production, and was going to start in April.
A spokesperson for Fox told The Wrap, “This all came down to timing, and seven weeks is not enough time to prep a movie like this,” where other reports give you the impression everything was ready to go, and Sutherland felt slighted by the powers that be.
Funny enough, there’s also a Hunger Games connection here, because the script for the 24 movie was written by Billy Ray, who did some work on the Hunger Games script. And finally, Deadline reports that the plot of the film, which obviously can’t be played out at an hour at a time, would have been completed in a three movie story arc.
