FBI: Most Wanted spinoff in the works at CBS; is it too early?
CBS has given a series commitment and a backdoor pilot order to FBI: Most Wanted, a series that will specifically look at a division of the Bureau responsible for tracking down the criminals on the Most Wanted list. Think The Blacklist, but without James Spader or some other criminal helping out behind the scenes. What’s fascinating to us from the get-go is that Wolf is actually going to co-write the pilot alongside Rene Balcer, who he has worked with for many years stemming back to his days on Law & Order. Wolf does not write specific scripts very often, so when he does it should be considered to be a rather enormous deal. (Even when he does not write, Wolf is acutely involved with every one of his productions, making him one of the busiest people in show business.)
As of right now, CBS is already looking to cast roles for a new series — per a report from Deadline, it was his plan upon first pitching FBI to make spin-offs from it, similar to what he’s done with One Chicago over on NBC. While it may seem too early to spin a new show off of FBI, remember that Chicago Fire spun off Chicago PD after just one season on the air. CBS loves franchises and/or remakes, so this checks off one of their two goals. They’ve had so much success over the years with everything from CSI to NCIS to even the Peter Lenkov universe — while MacGyver, Hawaii Five-0, and Magnum PI do not do super-frequent crossovers, they all are set within the same world.
Does this series commitment automatically mean that this new show is going to make it to the air? Not exactly. What it does mean is that CBS will have to pay a good bit of cash to the studio should they decide to not pick it up. For now though, you have to feel confident — we should also note that there is already a third idea that Wolf has for another series, though there isn’t a whole lot of word as to what that is at the moment.
FBI is in repeats this week, but it will return next month with some more new episodes. For more news on that and what you can expect, head over to the link here.
What do you think about the idea of FBI: Most Wanted — are you excited about the idea of a spin-off, or is it far too early for your liking? Be sure to share some of your thoughts now in the comments. (Photo: CBS.)