Fox developing 'new iteration' of Prison Break

Prison Break lives on!

Nearly a decade after its original run on Fox, Prison Break was revived for a nine-episode fifth season last year — but apparently, that wasn’t the end. The network is in early development on a “new iteration” of the series.

“We are developing a new iteration of Prison Break,” said Fox Entertainment President Michael Thorn told reporters at the Television Critics Association’s press tour Thursday. “It’s very early stages of development, but we’re really excited about it.”

It’s unclear if the series, which stars Wentworth Miller, Dominic Purcell, and Sarah Wayne Callies, will be completely revamped for this new go-round or the current cast will just return for a sixth season. Back in December, Purcell wrote on Instagram that season 6 was “in the works,” so the latter seems more likely.

UPDATE: Following the panel, EW pressed Fox Chairman and CEO Gary Newman for more information. “No, it would not be an entirely new cast,” he said. “It’s very early at this stage. Paul Scheuring had an idea for another season, and he came and pitched it to Michael and the team. They were excited about it, but it’s super early. We haven’t seen any written materials at all.”

Scheuring — the show’s original creator who he exited the series before the final season, but returned for the revival — previously told EW he was reticent to do a sixth season, initially even calling season 5 a closed-ended story. “To do it again, I think we’d have to find an equally strong or even stronger narrative and I think that’s very hard with Prison Break,” he said following the finale. “Never say never, but we’re just not going to do it just to do it; it has to be great. I know that the actors are very keen on doing it, but at this very moment, I don’t have an idea what it would be. It’s possible it could come from other sources, but right now there’s nothing in the old noggin.”

For his part, Miller thinks there’s more life in the series. When EW was on the set of the revival, there were even rumors of a sixth season being set in China. “I wouldn’t rule it out,” the star told EW. “I feel like there’s more story there and now we’re talking about multiple generations. There are a lot of different directions that we could go, but I’m not in favor of exploring any of that unless there’s something awesome that we can sink our teeth into.”