There is nothing worse than hearing your favorite television show has been cancelled. When you get attached to certain characters, or there’s a cliffhanger season finale, it can be heartbreaking to find out you won’t be getting to dive back into this world that you’ve come to love. Luckily, for the many fans of ABC’s hit series, The Rookie, a recent announcement suggests that our favorite police procedural won’t be added to that dreaded cancellation list anytime soon.
‘The Rookie’ Showrunner Has Re-Upped His Contract
Since it debuted in 2018, The Rookie has given us eight seasons of non-stop action and characters that draw us in. Throughout more than 140 episodes, Nathan Fillion has led a cast that never fails to keep us on the edge of our seats. But there are no guarantees when it comes to television, and any sign of a lack of support from the network can indicate a show is nearing its cancellation. Now, we’ve learned that ABC has no intention of letting The Rookie sign off in the near future. Creator and showrunner Alexi Hawley has just extended his overall deal with Lionsgate Television for several more years, and Lionsgate is the head studio that produces The Rookie. With this contract, Hawley will continue developing series exclusively for Lionsgate. Not only will The Rookie stay where it is, but Hawley’s new spin-off, The Rookie: North, is also part of the package. Hawley also has a drama series titled The Envoy that is in development with HBO Max, all under the Lionsgate umbrella.
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Collider Exclusive · Action Hero Quiz Which Action Hero Would Be Your Perfect Partner? Rambo · James Bond · Indiana Jones · John McClane · Ethan Hunt
Five legends. Five completely different ways of getting out alive — with style, with muscle, with charm, with luck, or with a plan so intricate it probably shouldn’t work. Ten questions will reveal which action hero was built to have your back.
🎖️Rambo
🍸James Bond
🏺Indiana Jones
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🔧John McClane
🎭Ethan Hunt
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01
You’re dropped into a dangerous situation with no warning. What do you need most from a partner? The first few seconds tell you everything about who belongs beside you.
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02
You have to get somewhere dangerous, fast. How do you travel? How you get there is half the mission.
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03
You’re pinned down and outnumbered. What does your ideal partner do? This is when you find out what someone is really made of.
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04
The mission is paused. You have one evening to decompress. What does your partner suggest? Who someone is when the pressure drops is who they actually are.
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05
How do you prefer your partner to communicate mid-mission? Good communication is the difference between partners and a liability.
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06
Your enemy is powerful, well-resourced, and has the upper hand. How should your partner approach them? The approach to the enemy defines the partnership.
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07
Things go badly wrong and you’re captured. What do you trust your partner to do? Who someone is when you need them most is the only thing that matters.
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08
What does your ideal partner bring to the table that you couldn’t replace? A great partner fills the gap you didn’t know you had.
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09
Every partnership has a cost. Which of these can you live with? No one comes without baggage. The question is whether you can carry it together.
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10
It’s the final moment. Everything is on the line. What do you need from your partner right now? The last question is the most honest one.
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Your Partner Has Been Assigned Your Perfect Partner Is…
Your answers have pointed to one action hero above all others. This is the person built to have your back — for better or considerably, spectacularly worse.
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Rambo
Your partner doesn’t talk much, doesn’t need to, and will have assessed every threat in your immediate environment before you’ve finished your first sentence. John Rambo is not a man of plans or politics — he is a force of nature shaped by survival, loyalty, and a capacity for endurance that goes beyond anything training can produce. He will not leave you behind. He has never left anyone behind who deserved to come home. What you get with Rambo is the most capable, most quietly ferocious partner imaginable — one who has been through things that would have broken anyone else, and who chose to keep going anyway. You’ll never need to ask if he has your back. You’ll just know.
James Bond
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Your partner will arrive perfectly dressed, perfectly briefed, and with a cover story so convincing it’ll take you a moment to remember what’s actually true. James Bond is the most professionally dangerous person in any room he enters — and the most disarmingly charming, which is the point. He operates in a world of layers, where nothing is what it appears and every advantage is used without apology. You’ll never be bored. You’ll occasionally be furious. But when it matters — when the mission is genuinely on the line and the margin for error has collapsed to nothing — Bond is exactly the partner you want. He has survived things that have no business being survivable. He does it with style. That is not nothing.
Indiana Jones
Your partner will know the history, the language, the cultural context, and exactly why the thing everyone else is ignoring is actually the most important thing in the room. Indiana Jones is brilliant, reckless, and occasionally impossible — but he is also one of the most resourceful, most genuinely knowledgeable partners you could find yourself beside. He approaches every situation with a scholar’s eye and a brawler’s instinct, which is an unusual combination and a remarkably effective one. He hates snakes and gets personally attached to objects of historical significance, both of which will slow you down at least once. It doesn’t matter. What Indy brings is irreplaceable — and the adventures you’ll have together will be the kind people write books about. Assuming you survive them.
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John McClane
Your partner was not supposed to be here. He does not have the right equipment, the right information, or anything approaching the right odds. He has a sarcastic remark and an absolute refusal to accept that the situation is as bad as it looks. John McClane is the greatest accidental hero in the history of action cinema — a man whose superpower is stubbornness, whose contingency plan is improvisation, and whose capacity to absorb punishment and keep moving would be alarming if it weren’t so useful. He will complain the entire time. He will make it significantly more chaotic than it needed to be. And he will absolutely, unconditionally, without question come through when it counts. Yippee-ki-yay.
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Ethan Hunt
Your partner has already run seventeen scenarios by the time you’ve finished reading the briefing, and the plan he’s settled on involves at least two things that should be physically impossible. Ethan Hunt operates at the absolute edge of human capability — technically, physically, and intellectually — and he brings the same relentless precision to protecting his partners that he brings to dismantling organisations that shouldn’t exist. He is not easy to know and he will never fully tell you everything. But he will carry the weight of the mission so completely, so absolutely, that your job is simply to trust him — and the remarkable thing is that trusting him always turns out to be the right call. The mission will be impossible. He will complete it anyway.
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The Rookie has already been renewed for Season 9, which is set to premiere in January 2027. And while Hawley’s new contract isn’t a guarantee for an endless run for the series, it does suggest that it would be unlikely for the show to be cancelled right away. This encouraging news comes after several shows in recent years have been complicated by the showrunner leaving the studio or network. For example, Prime Video’s Mr. & Mrs. Smith was quickly renewed after Season 1 aired in 2024. However, when showrunner Francesca Sloane‘s deal with Amazon MGM Studios ended, the show found itself in limbo. Production has now begun with a new showrunner, Anna Ouyang Moench, but the series has already faced significant delays.
A similar story has shown up with Netflix’s cancellation after one season of The Boroughs. The series seemed to be a ratings hit for the streamer, but when the cancellation was announced, many suspected that the true reason behind its demise was The Duffer Brothers leaving Netflix to sign a contract with Paramount. With these examples, it makes even more sense why Rookie fans can breathe a little easier with Hawley’s extended contract.
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‘The Rookie’ Is Only Gaining in Popularity
For most network shows, there’s a significant drop in ratings as each season progresses. So far into its run, it’d be easy to assume that The Rookie has its best days behind it. Well, nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, The Rookie seems to have found a brand-new audience through TikTok, with younger viewers deciding to binge-watch past seasons and then tune into the most recent episodes.
The procedural has already landed more than 12.8 billion minutes of viewing in the US in the first half of 2026 alone. With this level of success, it’s no surprise that ABC greenlit the spin-off so quickly.
It’s reassuring that Hawley and The Rookie won’t be going anywhere. Season 8 of the series left off with a whole host of storylines that viewers will want to see explored more in future episodes. The biggest cliffhanger of the series occurs in the Season 8 finale when the beloved couple, Chenford, find themselves kidnapped by the show’s recent big, bad villain, Heath Everett (Jeffrey Vincent Parise). There have also been hints that we might get a brand-new rookie, which could create a bunch of new and exciting plot points for the series. Police procedurals often have plenty to offer throughout a long run, and with Hawley’s commitment to stay the course, it looks like we won’t have to worry about leaving the Mid-Wilshire Police Department behind for a long time to come.
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Seasons 1–8 of The Rookie are available to stream on Hulu in the U.S. Season 9 is set to premiere in January 2027.
Tori Garrett, Chi-Yoon Chung, Michael Goi, Sylvain White, Lisa Demaine, Lanre Olabisi, Bill Johnson, David McWhirter, Liz Friedlander, Daniel Willis, Toa Fraser, Anne Renton, Jon Huertas, Cherie Nowlan, TK Shom, Rob Seidenglanz, Valerie Weiss, Barbara Brown, Charissa Sanjarernsuithikul, SJ Main Muñoz, Nelson McCormick, Marcus Stokes, Adam Davidson, Anna Mastro
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