Blue Bloods' 'Franchise Extensions' Teased by Paramount: What Does It Mean?

CBS’s police procedural TV show Blue Bloods can’t be called anything short of iconic, considering its mass following, stellar performance on the network, and star-studded cast led by TV legend Tom Selleck. Despite all these factors, in December 2023, it was revealed that Season 14 would be the finale of Blue Bloods.

Both the show’s stars and fans have been actively trying to revert the decision ever since, but the network doesn’t give in. However, there’s still hope for Blue Bloods, as the most recent update from Paramount implied.

Blue Bloods to Get a ‘Franchise Extension’

Recently, at the 2024 Paramount Global Annual Meeting of Stockholders, several franchises received huge updates. Apart from billion-dollar IPs mentioned by Paramount co-CEO Brian Robbins during the meeting, he also gave a peculiar hint at the Blue Bloods’ future — and apparently, it’s not quite as dark as we’d imagined!

“We are building tomorrow’s billion-dollar brands right now. In TV, new franchise extensions are coming for Dexter, Billions, and Blue Bloods, and CBS’ hit Fire Country shows huge promise,” Robbins declared during the meeting.

As you can see, there’s no word on extending the main show itself beyond Season 14, so that door is still very much closed. However, the company intends to bring us “franchise extensions” to Blue Bloods. Whatever does it mean, you may wonder?

What Does Paramount Plan for Blue Bloods?

In the case of Blue Bloods, the needlessly convoluted term “franchise extensions” can only mean one thing: spin-offs. With the main show’s finale, the network will be developing an off-shoot (or two) that will either focus on particular characters or switch the timeline or, less preferably, follow some completely different family.

Blue Bloods fans have come up with countless spin-off ideas over the years, but our personal favorite is a prequel set in the days when Henry was the Police Commissioner and Frank was just an ambitious young beat cop raising little kids. While recasting Tom Selleck would prove incredibly difficult, this idea is definitely worth a shot in our book: we’d love to see how things were back then.

Of course, the network can also focus on, say, Danny and Baez — or just follow NCIS ’ lead and make a Blue Bloods: Los Angeles spin-off, for all we know. But compared to the “Reagans back in the day” idea, those don’t sound as cool.

Source: Paramount