CBS sets Bill Paxton to star in their Training Day TV series

At one point there was hope that Ethan Hawke would be up for reprising his role of Jake Hoyt in CBS' upcoming television reboot/sequel of Antoine Fuqua’s TRAINING DAY, but it seems as though that ship has sailed with the announcement that Bill Paxton will be starring in CBS' Training Day series.

The new series, which is said to be a "reimagining" of Fuqua's film, takes place fifteen years after the events of the film and centers on an idealistic young African-American police officer who is appointed to an elite squad of the LAPD where he is partnered with a seasoned, morally ambiguous detective. Bill Paxton will play that seasoned detective, known as Frank Rourke, who is "a veteran LAPD cop who heads up the Special Investigation Section (SIS), a unit that goes after the worst of the worst. He lives by the law of the jungle and believes that real courage is the will to chase the bad guys where the law won’t." The role of the young trainee has yet to have been cast, but whomever ends up filling the role, chances are that they won't always be seeing eye to eye with Bill Paxton.

Antoine Fuqua was initially set to direct the Training Day pilot but recently had to pull out due to scheduling issues. Danny Cannon (Gotham) will be taking over directing duties. Even though it seems like Ethan Hawke won't be involved in the series at all now, CBS did have hopes that he might pop up for a recurring role. There were two Training Day pilot scripts written initially, one in which the corrupt older detective (Bill Paxton's role) would be Ethan Hawke as Hoyt and another in which Hoyt would be the Deputy Chief.