Summary
The24 Movieis in the early stages of development at 20th Century Studios andDisney. Kiefer Sutherland hasn’t signed on yet to reprise the iconic role of Jack Bauer, but it’s hard to imagine a big screen24adventure without him. The24 Moviehas some big obstacles to overcome if it’s going to be a success, with the real-time format having to change.24: Live Another Daystruggled to depict a 24-hour period over 12 episodes, and the24 Moviehas an even bigger task trying to fit one very bad day in Jack Bauer’s life into a two-hour movie.
Plenty of movies have been set in real time, but the issuethe big screen return of24has is that the television series format relied so heavily on this format for the structure of each season.24: Live Another Daywas a good example of how difficult it was to use the real time element, while still being a representation of a 24-hour day,without 24 episodes to tell the story.
24: Live Another Day
Starring
Kiefer Sutherland, Mary Lynn Rasjkub, Yvonne Strahovski, Tate Donovan, Kim Raver, Michael Wincott and William Devane
12
Created By
Joel Surnow and Robert Cochran
24was a groundbreaking action serieswhen it arrived on television screens in 2001, with each season depicting a day in the life of federal agent Jack Bauer. Events occur in real time, with each episode taking place over one hour in the day. After eight seasons,24bowed out in 2010. In the years following the end of24, the television landscape changed dramatically, and American television seasons became much shorter, with 12 episodes being the standard order, instead of 20+. Inevitably,when Jack Bauer returned for the limited series,24: Live Another Dayin 2014, it wasn’t logical to still have a season of television spanning 24 episodes, so it became 12 episodes, and the show lost what made it great in the first place.
I’m federal agent Jack Bauer, and today is the longest day of my life.
Events still take place in real time in24: Live Another Day, with the first 11 episodes taking place over an hour-long period in the day. However,in the season finale, events begin at 10pm and continue in real-time until the episode skipped forward nearly 12 hours to the final minutes of the 24-hour period,and it saw Jack Bauer hand himself over to the Russians in exchange for Chloe O’Brian’s life. It was a jarring way to bring the series to an end, and it broke with the format in an unforgivable way. Of course, fans knew that it would have to somehow break with the real time format, but it could’ve been done in a much better way, andthe upcoming24 Moviemust learn from this.
Every Start And Finish Time In Each 24 Series
The 24 Movie Can Still Use Some Aspects Of The Real Time Format But It Must Avoid The Mistakes Of The Limited Series
The24 Moviehas an even bigger obstacle to overcome than the one faced by the limited series24: Live Another Day. The real time format can remain for certain parts of the big screen adaptation, but it must carefully choose when to feature a time jump, so it really does take place over the course of a 24-hour period. If the24 Moviedoesn’t do this, it’s arguably not really 24 anymore.
24: Redemptionwas a feature-length television movie in 2008, which bridged the gap between the sixth and seventh seasons, and it took place over a two-hour period in the fictional African country of Sangala. It worked better than24: Live Another Day, but it wasn’t really24, and the movie should avoid going down this route.The24 Movieneeds to find that sweet spot in between what24: Redemptionand24: Live Another Daydid,so it depicts the worst day in Jack Bauer’s life with all the elements that made the original24series so good.
24: Redemption Key Facts
A good way to do this would be to have the opening sequence of the24 Movietake place in real time, before jumping forward a few hours and having the main chunk of the movie also take place in real time, before moving forward again to feature a tense race against time final sequence also set in real time.This would work much better than the two-hour period in24: Redemptionor one huge time jump in24: Live Another Day. The chairman of Imagine Entertainment, Brian Grazer, spoke about the approach towards the24 Moviein aninterview with MSNBC’s Squawk Box:
Imagine has always played in that zone where there is that high probability chance that it will be successful in movie theaters. It’s great for us because we’ve built, over 30 years, over 100 different products and brands. 24 (is) a movie that we’re going to do in a very interesting way with Disney and Fox.
