Paramount World Content material Distribution has landed in Cannes with a brand new NCIS for worldwide patrons, NCIS: Origins. Forward of the occasion, Deadline spoke to the group behind it: Mark Harmon, the unique Leroy Jethro Gibbs and an exec producer on the brand new present, alongside along with his son and fellow EP Sean Harmon, and co-showrunner/EPs David J. North and Gina Lucita Monreal.
NCIS as a franchise has launched reveals set in Los Angeles, New Orleans, Hawaii and Sydney, Australia, and clocked up greater than 1,000 episodes of community drama. Its newest variant, NCIS: Origins, gives one thing completely different and darker because the present goes again to the supply.
“The character of Gibbs has resonated with international audiences as a result of he’s a job mannequin and on the similar time somebody you possibly can relate to,” says Sean Harmon. “The world is used to seeing Gibbs as ‘the boss’, however in NCIS: Origins we’re coping with a a lot much less tempered model of him. Followers can look ahead to a extra intimate look into what makes Gibbs tick, in addition to assembly a few of the characters who influenced him alongside the way in which.”
The prequel winds the clock again to 1991. It begins on Gibbs’ first day of labor as a probationary agent, and flashbacks arrange how he ended up at what was then known as NIS. “He’s far more uncooked in lots of methods, he’s extra vocal than the Mark Harmon Gibbs all of us watched for therefore a few years,” says North.
The brand new recruit has endured a horrible private tragedy months earlier than the purpose the place the sequence kicks off. “NCIS: Origins is simply after the loss of life of his spouse and daughter,” says Mark Harmon. “He’s the ‘beginner’ at NIS and studying on daily basis beneath Particular Agent Mike Franks. We are going to see him develop and develop into the person he turns into, and we are going to trip with the viewers revealing that backstory and historical past.”
Within the new present, Austin Stowell steps into Gibbs’ sneakers. “Mark has advised him to belief his course of and his instincts and is accessible to him,” North says. “Austin has studied Mark and his mannerisms, however on the similar time, it’s a distinct character and a distinct interval in his life, and he’s introduced a lot of himself to it.”
North says NCIS followers are in for a shock. “It’s far more serialized. Gina and I initially offered it and developed it for streaming for Paramount+. It moved over to community [with a 2024-25 season straight-to-series order], however we needed to do extra of a streaming model of present.”
Monreal picks up the thread. “The tone itself is a bit grittier, it’s a bit darker, which we love, as a result of we really feel like we’re pushing the envelope so far as what the franchise does, however on the similar time, we’re holding the guts of it,” she says. “What makes NCIS so beloved is that this discovered household
The showrunner pair have written for what they name the ‘OG NCIS’ and need followers to come back alongside for a brand new type of NCIS trip.
“We imagine we all know what that particular sauce is, and we predict we’ve infused our present with that,” North says. “However we actually are going to a deeper place the place we’re taking these characters and studying a lot. Essentially the most particular episodes of NCIS are all the time those about our characters. These are all sprinkled all through the seasons, and people are those that persist with folks. Gina and I’ve sought out to try this each single week on NCIS Origins.”
