24: Legacy could see Kiefer Sutherland return as Jack Bauer

"We never considered Live Another Day to be Jack's final moment"

Sutherland played Jack Bauer for the first nine series of ‘24’

If you believe the idea of a 24 series minus the show's protagonist Jack Bauer to be criminal, don't lose all hope just yet.

Despite spin-off 24: Legacy featuring an all-new cast led by Straight Outta Compton actor Corey Hawkins, executive producer Howard Gordon seems hopeful that Kiefer Sutherland can return to the role he played across nine seasons.

"I do think the character has life in him, whether it's a movie or if he intersects with this new iteration of 24," he said during his ATX TV masterclass in Austin.

"I sure would love to see him at some point on the show, and I don't think he's ruled it out, either," Deadline reports him as saying.

Making it even more likely is Sutherland's presence on the series as a producer even though the actor is set to head up new US series Designated Survivor which would likely make a future appearance more difficult.

Sutherland returned as Bauer in Fox's event series 24: Live Another Day in 2014 following 24's initial eight-season run which ended in 2010. While remaining reticent at the time, Gordon has now revealed that Live Another Day was never intended to be the character's swan song.

He stated:

"I don't know how public this is but we didn't question or consider this being Jack's last moment, Jack's end. [But] that character has, in fact, lost too much to be the centre of an ongoing enterprise."

Hawkins will play military war hero Eric Carter who requests the help of Counter Terrorist Unit (CTU) in his prevention of an attack on American soil. Fresh from an appearance in Homeland, Miranda Otto will also star.

24: Legacy will premiere in the States 5 February 2017 with Sky 1 yet to announce an airdate.