Legacy eyes Straight Outta Compton’s Corey Hawkins as new lead

Corey Hawkins, who played Dr. Dre in the hit film “Straight Outta Compton”, will play the lead in Fox’s upcoming reboot of “24”.

Written by 24 veterans Manny Coto and Evan Katz, and directed by Stephen Hopkins (who helmed the original 24 pilot way back in 2001), 24: Legacy revolves around a military hero’s return to the US and the trouble that follows him back – compelling him to ask CTU for help in saving his life, and stopping what potentially could be one of the largest-scale terror attacks on American soil.

Prior to his U.S return, Carter had a sketchy background but changed his life for the better once he became an Army Ranger. Real-time action will ensues! Up next, the Juilliard-trained actor will appear in Legendary’s Kong: Skull Island. The theater actor, whose previous TV work was for episodes of Royal Pains and Golden Boy, joined the cast of The Walking Dead in Season 6 as Heath (as seen above), which means he could be on two of TVs highest rated shows by next fall. So yeah, it’s safe to say that he’s been having a pretty good year.

With Hawkins’ place now secured, word is that Fox is narrowing its search for an actress to take up the mantle of the show’s female lead, one who boasts “a long history at the agency”. The last time we saw Bauer, he was being hauled off to a Russian gulag, a dark but fitting end for character whose sins had finally caught up with him.

And Deadline reported that other CTU members from the original 24 series would likely be mentioned on the reboot, though no plans for any of them to be recurring characters have been announced. Eric is obviously younger than Jack Bauer – and also pretty young to get the whole “called back into action” plotline, but Ill go with it – so he probably wont be quite up to the super-standards of regular 24 fans.