This will be at least the 3rd cop movie with a black lead that CBS has considered turning into a weekly TV series – "Beverly Hills Cop" and "Rush Hour" are the other 2. Of course we know that the network would eventually pass on the "Beverly Hills Cop" TV series which was to star Brandon T. Jackson as Axel Foley’s son (although a pilot was produced); the "Rush Hour" series, on the other hand, was ordered to series and is set to debut this year, as a mid-season replacement.
The network (maybe the *whitest* of the so-called Big Four – ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC) has now officially given a pilot order to a "Training Day" TV series adaptation, which, as was reported last summer, Antoine Fuqua had been shopping around to the broadcast networks, with producer Jerry Bruckheimer and writer Will Beall ("Gangster Squad").
No ETA yet, and it’s obviously too early for specifics, but what we do know is that the potential series will be set in the present day, and, instead of following the exploits of a black crooked veteran cop and a white idealistic rookie, Fuqua will switch the races of the pair, and have the rookie played by a black actor, and the rogue veteran cop played by a white actor.
Per CBS’ press release, the Training Day series will center on “an idealistic young African-American police officer [who] is appointed to an elite squad of the LAPD where he is partnered with a seasoned, morally ambiguous Caucasian detective.”
Fuqua will executive produce and direct the pilot. And if CBS digs what they see when it’s all done, there might be a "Training Day" TV series coming to a small screen near you, quite possibly a year from now, either as a fall 2016 premiere or a winter 2017 mid-season replacement.
When the news of Fuqua shopping the project around first broke, I thought Fox would end up picking it up. It just feels like it’s more up their alley – a gritty crime noir. But maybe CBS wants to shake up its image a bit, in order to attract younger and more diverse audiences.
Given today’s announcement, we should hear about casting soon enough.
