Kiefer Sutherland Will Return For 24 Movie This April

20th Century Fox will finally put into production a big screen adaptation of their popular t.v. action series 24 in the first half of 2012, reports Deadline. Kiefer Sutherland will return as the tough counter terrorism secret agent who will no doubt become the target of some kind of personal vendetta against him, alongside a global threat. Fox and producers Brian Grazer and Kiefer Sutherland himself have been trying to crack a movie version of 24 ever since it began airing a decade ago and became an instant hit. One problem they always ran into was figuring out how to tackle the 'real time' thriller aspect of the show that always represented an hour of the story told over a 60 minute episode, the unique and clever concept that elevated the material from other action genre shows. It's never quite been stated how they plan to tackle this but most likely a film version will become two hours of Sutherland's life, perhaps a plot like the Die Hard or Die Hard With A Vengeance movie which were mostly condensed to a few hours. Plans for a film adaptation have accelerated since Fox cancelled the television series though the road blocks went up last year when Fox weren't all that pleased with Billy Ray's (Breach, State of Play) screenplay and ordered more graft on it from Mark Bomback, one of the many scribes who put together Fox's Live Free or Die Hard (just so you have no illusions over what they are looking for here). Somewhere along the way action maestro Tony Scott, perhaps the man most suited to directing a 24 movie with a CV filled with kick-ass actioners like Man On Fire, Top Gun, The Taking of Pelham 123 and Deja Vu was courted but Deadline notes he is no longer involved. Fox, Grazer & Sutherland are now talking to a number of directors with a keen eye to get 24: The Movie into production in the next six or seven months, though April is being specifically eyed as Sutherland will be in midseason on Fox's supernatural drama Touch. Bomback's new draft should land at Fox's desk before the year is out and it's going to be interesting to see who ends up with the job of directing and how much of Billy Ray's original script remains intact. A 2013 release date is likely.