Writing a movie based on 24 should be child's play. Seriously, a monkey could do it. There's a bomb threat or an assassination plot or whatever, and Jack Bauer puts an end to it by uncovering moles and exposing duplicitous government officials and shooting people and torturing people and shouting the phrase "Soft perimeter!" into a telephone a lot and grimacing. Then something sad happens at the end to make his victory seem hollow and pyrrhic. Job done. It's not exactly brain surgery.
And yet, despite all this, it's been revealed that 20th Century Fox has just rejected a script for the movie adaptation of 24 written by State of Play's Billy Ray. As a result, producer Howard Gordon has admitted that the entire project is now "in suspended animation. There is talk about re-approaching it."
This is not a brilliant development. By hook or by crook, the 24 movie needs to happen. Sure, there are plenty of other films about attempts to foil terrorist plots, but none have a hero who will quite happily torture suspects with a blowtorch. None feature government agencies full of shifty-eyed double agents and bosses who can't keep their jobs for any longer than about four hours at a time. None feature Chloe O'Brian. A world without a 24 movie isn't a world worth living in.
Luckily, I have a solution. If actual scriptwriters can't turn in a decent 24 movie script, then we're simply going to have to do it for them. It won't be difficult – after all, who knows more about what audiences want from a 24 movie than the audience itself? Together we should be able to save the 24 movie once and for all. But first, some considerations.
Should it be set in real time? It's the whole gimmick of 24, so should it go for the film as well? It might seem like sacrilege to abandon it in favour of a more traditional narrative structure, letting characters sleep and urinate and fly around the world whenever they want. But remember that the last film to attempt the real-time format was 88 Minutes. Nobody needs another 88 Minutes. Nobody.
What rating should it get? Freed from the constraints of network television, it'd be tempting to let loose on the 24 movie, allowing Jack Bauer to say more than "dammit" when things go wrong and sloshing even more blood around than usual. But then again, look at Sex and the City – the first movie made a ton of money by diluting everything down and cutting out almost every trace of sex. Maybe more people would watch the 24 movie if, rather than shooting people and grunting, Jack Bauer just went on holiday with some gal pals and tried on a succession of funny hats instead.
Enemy country
Characters
So now it's over to you. If you were asked to make the perfect 24 movie, what would you include? And what would you omit? Leave your suggestions below, and together we can get this thing back on track.
