24 season 2 nearly dropped the show's famous real-time format in favor of a more generic approach - here's why this plan was dropped. 24 debuted in 2001 and followed CTU agent Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland) as he tried to stop the people behind a planned assassination attempt on Presidental candidate David Palmer (Dennis Haysbert). 24 made innovative use of the real-time format, with each episode being one hour in a single day. The show wasn't an instant hit with its first season, but it soon became a major success around the world.
24's relentless pace, intense action sequences and great characters saw it become one of the biggest TV shows of the 2000s. The original series also spawned a TV movie dubbed 24: Redemption, a PS2 video game and various books and comics, before it came to an end with 2010's season 8. Once the show ended, the plan was to make a movie version - with a 24/Die Hard crossover being briefly considered - before Sutherland returned for miniseries 24: Live Another Day, which sent Jack on a personal mission to London. In 2017, Fox tried to relaunch the franchise with 24: Legacy, which cast Corey Hawkins as new hero Eric Carter, but this spinoff only lasted for a single season.
Before the showrunners behind 24 settled on the idea of being a thriller series, they considered making it a real-time comedy centered around a chaotic wedding. This idea made its way - in a very altered form - to season 2, but surprisingly, this series almost saw 24 drop the real-time format completely. While the concept helped give season 1 a propulsive feel, it was also difficult to write for and resulted in some silly subplots like Teri Bauer's - the first 24 character to receive a "silent clock" - bout of amnesia. The longtime value of 24's real-time format was also questioned at the network, with co-creator Joel Surnow once revealing in an EW interview that it was almost dropped in favor of a more straightforward procedural approach.
Surnow revealed that "... Michael Loceff and me write a script for the second season in which the show would be a stand-alone. Each show took place in a 24-hour period, and it would just be one terrorist a week, the villain of the week." With the first season having committed to the concept, its doubtful viewers would have enjoyed 24 season 2 dropping the real-time format in favor of Jack chasing a new terrorist every week. The first few seasons of 24 - with many considering 24 season 5 to be the best - had their share of flaws resulting from the real-time approach, but this formula is also what made it so compelling.
Thankfully, it was soon decided that making 24 more a standard thriller just wasn't going to work, and the idea was quickly dropped. Thus, 24 season 2 retained the real-time concept, as did every subsequent season. It turns out the real-time element is what ultimately tripped up the planned movie, as the creatives involved found it was too difficult to translate the premise to a two-hour movie.