{alltv} 'Friday Night Lights' exec producer Jason Katims talks plans for a(nother) big-screen movie

When the Riggins brothers clinked beer bottles and pledged, "Texas forever," in the series finale of Friday Night Lights last month, apparently they weren't messing around. At a Television Critics Association event yesterday, FNL executive producer Peter Berg mentioned that he was developing a big-screen version of NBC's revered family drama about high school football, which means that the book that became a movie that became a TV show could very well become a movie once again! In hopes of scoring more information about the project, EW respectfully blitzed FNL executive producer/showrunner Jason Katims. "It is something that we had talked about for a couple of years, almost in a half-kidding way," shares Katims. "And then a few months ago, [executive producer] Brian Grazer and Pete called me saying they really wanted to do this. We had some meetings and we came up with a direction that we really loved. The trick was to figure out a way to both honor the series and not move away from that, but still find something that would be a satisfying movie in and of itself. It's still very early — I'm just beginning to plot out the story for the script — but it's something that we're all excited about."

Under what circumstances would our eyes be clear and our hearts full again? Nothing is set in stone, cautions Katims, but the movie would probably "start with a time jump from when we ended the series, and quite possibly a considerable time jump." And although the series wrapped up — SPOILER ALERT — with Coach Taylor (Kyle Chandler) and wife Tami (Connie Britton) ensconced in Philadelphia, much if not most of the action would likely bring us back to Texas. As for the cast, Berg, who directed the 2004 FNL film, seemed to indicate that the plot would revolve around Chandler's and Britton's characters. "I haven't talked to them about it that much because I feel like the first thing they're going to want to know is, 'What's the story?' and that's understandable," says Katims. "So the best chance we have of bringing back not only Kyle and Connie but at least several other cast members is by first moving forward with the script."

And for those who wonder how the FNL team is already ready for some more football, bear in mind that it's been a longer off-season than you might think. "Even though the series just finished its run on NBC, it was close to a year ago that we finished production, so I've actually had some time to reflect on it," says Katims, who's also the exec producer of the Peacock drama Parenthood. "One of the things that's most exciting for me is to be able to go back into that world through writing the story."