CSI fans take heart: A feature-length movie is in the cards, and it's definitely going to involve Gil Grissom, according to William Petersen.
"Yes, there will be a movie," Petersen told Britain's Radio Times. Although he is sure fans might be "a little trepidatious," Petersen promises the move to the big screen will not be done haphazardly.
"Usually people leave it till a series has finished —they did that with The X-Files and Sex and the City," Petersen said. "But it's about finding the right story, there has got to be a real reason to do it."
One of those real reasons? Grissom...
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Two things lured Academy Award winner William Friedkin into directing the 200th episode of CSI: an enduring friendship with William Petersen, and a fascination with all things underground. Friedkin and Petersen worked together in the former CSI star's breakthrough film, To Live and Die in L.A., which Friedkin wrote and directed. The two Chicago-area natives also teamed on a Showtime adaptation of Twelve Angry Men and the December 2007 CSI episode "Cockroaches," which aired about a year before Petersen left the show.
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Ladies and gentlemen, the Thursday ratings recap:
8 pm/ET
While all the majors accommodated President Bush's farewell address, Smallville delivered 4.27 million total viewers, a slight uptick from its last fresh episode and its biggest audience since Nov. 6.
9 pm
Grissom's goodbye was watched by 24.25 million viewers, a 12 percent increase over CSI's last fresh episode and the procedural's largest audience since its 2007 season opener. Grey's Anatomy dipped six percent to fall shy of 13 mil. Placing third, The Office (8.35 mil) was down 450K while 30 Rock (6.6 mil) surged 26 percent. Supernatural, at 2.96 mil, slipped 11 percent from its last new episode.
10 pm
Eleventh Hour did 15.5 mil, followed by Private Practice (8.66 mil, down 370 thou). ER dipped a bit to drop below seven mil.
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Come Jan. 15, television's most popular show, CSI, will lose its beloved character Gil Grissom. But why would William Petersen leave his starring role on a hit show that averages 21.3 million viewers a week? A character that made him one of the highest paid actors on television?
"The reason I'm leaving is because ...
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They're the words no fan of CBS' top-rated procedural ever wanted (or expected) to hear from Grissom: "I'm going to leave CSI."
Yet that announcement comes within the first minutes of this week's episode, laying the foundation for William Petersen's exit as a series regular and in some part paving the way for a new arrival to the team: Ray Langston, a criminology professor/former research pathologist played by film vet Laurence Fishburne.
But before Fishburne hits your screen — and amid the undoubted cries of, "My Gil/Bill is not replaceable!" — just know these four things about the "transition of power" to come.
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