The floundering of FOX’s 24: Legacy gave way to potential anthology talk, but the reboot may be more drastic than we thought. According to FOX brass, any future iterations of 24 might do away with the counter-terrorism approach altogether, looking to take “the same kind of ticking clock format and apply it to something else.”

FOX bosses Dana Walden and David Madden addressed the franchise’s future from their TCA press tour panel, admitting that 24: Legacy was perhaps too close to the original series without the core elements and characters that drew people. Instead, Deadline reports that conversations with executive producers Howard Gordon, Brian Grazer and co-creator Joel Surnow have leaned toward developing two distinct ideas and perhaps taking one to pilot before next year.

Madden noted whatever new version “will have the same urgency but may not be set in the CTU, it will have same style and urgency but in a different venue,” while Walden added after the fact that terrorism may not form a central component regardless:

I think that partly what is exciting is, we’re opening up the possibility of it being anything where that 24-hour clock is at the most critical period of a story, so I don’t want to limit them. It can only be an action-oriented show, maybe not. It can only be an emotional thing. The opportunity is for them to think their biggest thoughts.

Granted, any number of action-oriented situations could fill a ticking clock, but is 24 still 24 without the familiar setting?

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