Along with shepherding his ABC hit The Rookie starring Nathan Fillion, series creator/executive producer Alexi Hawley has been developing a new spinoff series for the network.
As Deadline reported exclusively in December, the project, written by Hawley, is set in Washington state and follows a male cop who is stepping into a new phase of life in his second act.
During an interview tied to the Season 7 finale of The Rookie, Hawley gave Deadline an update on the potential spinoff.
“I’ve been going back and there’s a script, I’ve been doing some drafts and getting some notes,” he said. “You know me, I’m a hopeful person, so I remain hopeful. I mean, it would be a great thing. So let’s see.”
Deadline also asked Craig Erwich, President, Disney Television Group, who oversees ABC, about the status of the spinoff.
“I don’t have any news to share right now,” he said.
In addition to The Rookie and spinoff The Rookie: Feds starring Niecy Nash, which ran on ABC for one season, Hawley also created and executive produced the Netflix spy thriller series The Recruit, starring Noah Centineo, which was recently cancelled after two seasons.
In addition to their creator, The Rookie and The Recruit had other connective tissue: Fillion had a recurring role on The Rookie as the CIA director, as did Felix Solis, who was a series regular on The Rookie: Feds and has been recurring on The Rookie.
Meanwhile, The Rookie has been dropping the phrase “chaos agent,” which is what Centoneo’s character Owen is known as. While addressing whether that was an accident or not, Hawley revealed what The Recruit could’ve been titled had the Netflix not also had The Night Agent in the hopper.
“I don’t think that was an accident,” Hawley said. “I mean, it’s a phrase I use, and it was actually one of the titles tat got kicked around for Recruit way back in the day, but they had Night Agent, and so that got torpedoed. So that wasn’t necessarily a nod to Recruit.”
At the time of The Recruit‘s cancellation, Hawley floated the idea for a movie to wrap up Owen’s story. Is that still in the cards?
“I don’t know. I think it’s still early days on The Recruit side to be talking about a movie or anything,” he said. “I still am passionate about that world and the story, and would love to revisit at some point with them, but yeah, not at this moment.”
