The Black List - NBC to remake The Following with Kiefer Sutherland

Why wait 25 years to remake a show when you can do almost the same thing 6 weeks after the show in question started ? Even if the great Kiefer Sutherland is involved, the parallel with The Following is just too obvious :

NBC has offered Kiefer Sutherland a starring role in the pilot The Black List, a provocative new development that doesn't seem to bode well for the future of Touch on FOX.

From Jon Bokenkamp, The Black List is about how the world's most wanted criminal mysteriously turns himself in and offers to give up everyone he has ever worked with. His only condition is he will only work with a newly minted FBI agent with whom he seemingly has no connection.

Sutherland has been offered the role of the criminal. It's a second position offer, since no decision has been made on the future of the Sutherland starrer Touch. But FOX can't be pleased with how the second year drama is performing on Fridays : last week, the series averaged 2.7 million viewers and a mere .7 rating in A18-49.

FOX is expected to announce the season finale dates for Touch and its other series by tomorrow. It’s unlikely Fox will let viewers know about the drama’s fate until closer to the New York Upfronts in May.

Source.

Kiefer, go work on pay cable or on FX / AMC, damn it ! Though he does make a great villain.

By the way, if you gave up on Touch last year (can't be blamed for that), you should know that 4 episodes in, season 2 is pretty good so far, imo. More energetic, more serialized, we don't lose time with useless characters (that ultimately are connected to each another) but instead it focuses on AsterCorp and the 36 chosen ones. I like what I'm seeing so far. Sure, it's not must-see TV, but it's definitely interesting. I hope Tim Kring planned an endgame for this, because story-wise it could very well end in 9 episodes (it's not a story meant to last many seasons anyway), and ratings-wise it will definitely end in 9 episodes.

So, this will bring up the question : when is the 24 movie going to be made ? Kiefer could have a very open schedule soon. Not that story-wise there is a need to have a feature follow-up, episode 8.24 is a series finale, but it could be interesting, as long as Fox doesn't turn it into Die Hard - even though there hasn't been a Die Hard film since 2007, wink (though some could argue that there hasn't been a Die Hard film since 1995).