Writer hired for 24 movie

Jack Bauer is set to have yet another bad day as work begins on bringing 24 to the big screen. Does this mean the start of the end for CTU? *Gasp* Doop...dip...doop...dip...

Even though the real-time show has just started again on US telly, there are rumours abound that this (eighth) series will be its last. Cue Kiefer Sutherland shouting "Dammit! We're running out of time" and getting a screenwriter to work on a movie script...at gunpoint.

The screenwriter in question is Billy Ray (of State of Play, Flightplan and the upcoming Source Code fame - not Achy Breaky Heart fame), and he will be transferring the action to Europe.

I seem to remember an interview with Sutherland last year in which he said he would want a movie to be set in London and then Paris, going via the Eurostar. Of course, if this were real life, Jack Bauer would be stuck at Kings Cross for half the movie because the 2.10pm to Brussels had broken down at the platform.

Most interestingly, however, is that the film will depict a whole day in just two hours. That means it won't be following the show's trademark real-time format. While I understand the reasoning (technically the film should be called '2'), isn't that stripping 24 of it's main premise? Without that, it's just Kiefer Sutherland waving a gun around in any old action flick.

Anyway, let's hope the film is set in London, and we hear reports of his usual drunken shenanigans during filming.