The highest-profile role of this year’s broadcast pilot season has been filled — David Boreanaz has closed a deal to headline NBC‘s reboot of The Rockford Files. The Angel, Bones and SEAL Team alum will succeed James Garner as James Rockford, the witty, world-weary and chronically broke private investigator Garner originated on the 1974 NBC series.
As expected, Rockford was a sought-after role. While broadcast pilots typically go through up to half-dozen offers for the leads until someone engages, there were only two offers in the case of The Rockford Files. Both got interest and led to negotiations, with the reason the first did not pan out being logistical, tied to the series’ filming location, I hear. (The actor would only commit if the series was guaranteed to shoot in Los Angeles.)
While The Rockford Files is set in Los Angeles, the pilot will shoot in Atlanta with additional filming in Los Angeles. It has not been determined where production on the potential series would be based should the pilot get picked up; it’s possible that the show applies for a California tax credit.
Getting Boreanaz could be a good omen given his broadcast track record, with all pilots he has starred in going to series and all his series having long, successful runs. The WB’s supernatural drama Angel, which only did a short presentation since it was a spinoff from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and CBS/Paramount+’s military drama SEAL Team each produced more than 100 episodes; Fox’s crime procedural Bones did more than 200.
The Rockford Files, a contemporary update on the classic series of the same name, comes from writer Mike Daniels, producers Sarah Timberman and Carl Beverly and Universal Television.
In it, newly paroled after doing time for a crime he didn’t commit, James Rockford (Boreanaz) returns to his life as a private investigator using his charm and wit to solve cases around Los Angeles, with his charmingly gruff exterior masking a strong moral core. It doesn’t take long for his quest for legitimacy to land him squarely in the crosshairs of both local police and organized crime.
Daniels executive produces alongside Timberman and Beverly via their Timberman/Beverly banner, with the company’s Chris Leanza co-executive producing. Boreanaz is a producer. Universal Television, a division of Universal Studio Group, is the studio.
This marks a reunion with Boreanaz for Timberman and Beverly who executive produced SEAL Team.
Boreanaz is repped by CAA, Visionary Entertainment and Felker Toczek Suddleson.
