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Kiefer Sutherland is officially back as Jack Bauer. FOX has announced that it will air 12 episodes of "24: Live Another Day" in May 2014 as part of its event programming in the summer.

Original showrunner Howard Gordon, who is now executive producing Showtime's "Homeland", will be back at the helm of the limited series. "I don't think I'd ever want to do 24 (episodes) again," he says.

"It was a crushing high-wire act; we look back with wonder and amazement but we have no desire to try to repeat that," he continues, adding that the 12-episodes format "helps you to avoid the contortions we were forced to make on the show, (and) we can use the time deletions to account for some of the distances the story had to improbably travel."

Fox Entertainment Chairman Kevin Reilly dishes that "24" producers "always had the idea of maybe someday doing feature films, but as got into it they all agreed '24' being compressed in two hours is not '24'." He further shares, "A light bulb went off with Howard Gordon. The spine of the 24 episodes is about 12 hours. Those were big events that occurred and little connective tissue in between."

"The [event series] franchise is less than six months old and we're getting a who's who of Hollywood in the door to participate in this," Reilly claims. As for other original actors, Gordon teases, "Everybody who's not dead is still in play."

"24" was canceled in 2010. The limited series joins "Wayward Pines", a miniseries from M. Night Shyamalan starring Matt Dillon which will also serve as a way to bridge the gap between the regular seasons.