Antoine Fuqua says the 24 movie is dead

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

After years of trying to get a big screen adventure for Jack Bauer made, it looks like the chances of ever seeing a 24 movie are coming to a close. After eight real time seasons and a TV movie, it seemed inevitable for Kiefer Sutherland‘s iconic character to make the jump to theaters and take the place left vacant by John McClane and the DIE HARD franchise. The closest we ever got was OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN director Antoine Fuqua signing up to direct the 24 movie.

Fuqua, who is also developing biopics of Tupac Shakur and Miles Davis, recently told IndieWire that the 24 movie has stalled completely.

“Yeah, that’s not happening. I don’t think it’s gonna happen at all, definitely not with me,” Fuqua shrugs, putting the stake in what has always been a pretty tenuous project. “I met with Kiefer [Sutherland], Fox wanted to do it, it was a matter of his schedule before he went off to do his new show [’Touch‘].” The story that circulated was that there were budgetary disputes, as well as the matter of a meager offer to Sutherland, and Fuqua leans towards that by admitting, “I don’t think he was able to get a proper agreement with Fox. The time just passed, and I went off to go to what I was doing.”

You would think it would have been a slam dunk for a 24 movie to have gotten made. I mean, they obviously would have had to abandon the real time gimmick, but Jack Bauer was such an identifiable character, the movie would have done pretty well at the box office. OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN, which echoes a subplot from the seventh season of 24, would have worked perfectly as a Jack Bauer adventure. In fact, if Kiefer Sutherland had not elected to star in the awful series TOUCH, we may have seen the 24 movie happen.

While 24 is not completely dead, I would say having the director move on, the star move on, and the creators and producers move on is as close to a nail in the coffin as we will get on this project.