As posted over at /Film, a two hour prequel for this upcoming season is currently in production. To my knowledge, they’re filming in Africa at the moment, or at least were recently. However, Robert Carlyle has confirmed to Premiere that the two hour prequel takes place in real time and the the end of the prequel will connect directly into the first episode of the series.
“This two hours is two hours in real time and there’ll then be 22 episodes. I don’t know how they connect it to the first of those 22 episodes but it’s literally the third hour”¦”
What’s more? It sounds like this “two-hour prequel” is, in fact, just the first two episodes of the season, and 22 more will follow. Making it scarcely a prequel, and certainly threatening to hijack the idea that 24 episodes take place over 24 hours.
This could be a mess, folks.
Carlyle also revealed a tidbit about his role in the prequel.
“My character’s called Carl Benton who is Jack Bauer’s best buddy and he hasn’t seen him for 10 years or something. Jack’s on his travels and he comes to see Carl and hang out with him and potentially change his life. Maybe”¦” “We were in the Stellenbosch region, the wine country. It was doubling for jungle in the fictional country of Sangala.”