After several months of development, the cast of CBS' new TV seriesTraining Dayis finally starting to come together.Deadlinereports thatBill Paxtonhas signed on to play corrupt LAPD veteran detective Frank Rourke, who teams up with an idealistic young African-American detective. A report from earlier this month revealed that originalTraining DaystarEthan Hawkewas being eyed to come back for the series as his character from the original movie, Jake Hoyt, but he is no longer involved with the project.
The TV series is reportedly set 15 years after the events of the movie, centering on a young African-American officer named Kyle, who is tasked by the Deputy Chief to go undercover within one of the LAPD’s elite squads, in order to take down a crooked white detective, Frank Rourke. In order to gain the detective’s trust, he is assigned to be his new partner. There were actually two different versions of the pilot script, written byWill Beall(Gangster Squad).
In the first version of the script, the corrupt detective is actually Jake Hoyt. This was written specifically to try and landEthan Hawke, but the actor reportedly wasn’t interested in playing a crooked version of Jake. A new version of the pilot was written, which was given the green light, and features a new character named Frank who is the crooked detective, while Hoyt has risen to Deputy Chief. Thepilot episodereportedly addresses the fate ofDenzel Washington’s Alonzo Harris, who was killed at the end of theoriginal movie.
Bill Paxton’s Frank Rourke is the head of LAPD’s Special Investigation Unit, an elite team that goes after L.A.’s worst criminals. Frank believes that “real courage” is the will to chase criminals that other factions of law enforcement won’t go after, and he isn’t terribly pleased about babysitting a new detective. This report also reveals that the network has “moved away” from both versions of the pilot script, now thatEthan Hawkemoved on, but it isn’t known how much the story will change without the Jake Hoyt character involved.
Danny Cannon has been set to direct the pilot episode, afterAntoine Fuqua, who directed the originalTraining Day, had to drop out due to scheduling conflicts.Antoine Fuquawill still serve as an executive producer onTraining Dayalong withWill Beall,Jerry Bruckheimer, Jonathan Littman and KristieAnne Reed.Bill Paxtonmost recently starred on ABC’sMarvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.as John Garret and on the miniseries Texas Rising.
