There’s only one way to make a creatively and financially successful feature based on 24, the rightwing Keifer Sutherland series about fighting terrorism. And that’s to up the game all around. It would have to feel and play on a much cooler scale and within a much hipper realm than what’s been generated by the series. It couldn’t just a big-screen 24 that you have to pay $30 bucks to see with parking. That wouldn’t work.

I’m guessing that deep down 20th Century Fox management was sensing that the 24 movie, which Sutherland intended to star in and Brian Grazer would have produced, wasn’t on-track to be an extra-special, Michael Mann-ish thing, and that’s why they didn’t want to spend any more than $30 million or pay Sutherland any more than a pathetic (and, let’s face it, insulting) $1 million, and that’s why the show has been shut down, as TheWrap‘s Sharon Waxman is reporting, “over budget and star salary issues.”‘

I’m sorry but I don’t feel I need a 24 movie in my life anytime soon. There’s no real mystery to Sutherland after all these years of carrying the series, and the star of a film has to have at least some of that charismatic je ne sais quoi. I enjoy rightwing movies if they’re handled well (i.e., Man on Fire was terrific) but 9/11 was 10 1/2 years ago…later, move on.