CBS Moves Ahead With New Crime Thriller Series From 'Chicago P.D.' Creator

Broadcast networks aren’t known for planning this far ahead, but CBS has been stacking up projects this year for a season that’s still two development cycles away. Four dramas were flagged in April for 2027-28 consideration, and the newest one to get past the pilot-script stage is bringing back a face that network procedural fans have been wanting to see since a cancellation last year left him without anywhere to hang his hat.

It’s a reunion in the truest sense, pairing an actor with the writer who built the character that made his name in the first place, before hiring him again once the character was behind him. Both came up through Dick Wolf’s procedural machine, both are working outside of it now, and the show they’ve landed on is set a long way from Chicago.

Variety is reporting that CBS has opened a development room for Strike Force, a working-title drama written and executive produced by Matt Olmstead, with Jesse Lee Soffer attached to star and executive produce. Per the logline, Soffer plays a battle-tested DEA agent who returns home to Kansas City to lead a multi-agency unit targeting the violent criminals now trying to exploit America’s heartland.

Jerry Bruckheimer and KristieAnne Reed executive produce as non-writing EPs through Jerry Bruckheimer Television, with CBS Studios producing. Bruckheimer’s relationship with the network is about as deep as they come, running from CSI through to the current Fire Country, Sheriff Country, and Boston Blue block on Friday nights, and his F1 took over $631 million worldwide in 2025.

For Soffer, this would be a third series alongside Olmstead. He played Jay Halstead on Chicago P.D. for more than nine seasons before leaving in 2022, well ahead of the cast churn that’s continued into Season 14, then took over the Fly Team on FBI: International for its fourth season, which CBS canceled in March 2025 after failing to reach terms with Universal Television. The finale aired that May.

The cast of Chicago Justice, led by Philip Winchester as Peter Stone. — Philip Winchester, as Peter Stone, leads the cast of Chicago Justice.

Olmstead co-created Chicago P.D. with Wolf and ran it for its first four seasons, and he’s had a hand in most of what grew around it, co-creating Chicago Med and the short-lived Chicago Justice, then Law & Order: Organized Crime with Christopher Meloni. Before any of that, he wrote on NYPD Blue, Prison Break, and Breakout Kings, which is a roundabout way of saying he knows this genre better than almost anyone currently working in it.

A development room order hasn’t been greenlight, though, and Strike Force has to survive the script stage before CBS commits to anything. Kansas City has gone this long without a procedural to call its own, so another year of waiting shouldn’t sting too much.

Release Date: January 8, 2014
Network: NBC
Showrunner: Derek Haas
Directors: Nick Gomez, Eriq La Salle, Carl Seaton, Fred Berner, Vincent Misiano, Bethany Rooney, Rohn Schmidt, Sanford Bookstaver, John Hyams, Nicole Rubio, Terry Miller, Takashi Doscher, Brenna Malloy, Lisa Robinson, Marc Roskin, Charles S. Carroll, David Rodriguez, Holly Dale, John Polson, Lin Oeding, Mykelti Williamson, Paul McCrane, Alik Sakharov, Charlotte Brändström
Writers: Craig Gore, Tim Walsh, Timothy J. Sexton, Mike Weiss, Mo Masi, Tiller Russell, Eduardo Javier Canto, Jamie Pachino, Mike Batistick, Cole Maliska, John Dove, Tiffany Bratcher, David Hoselton, Maisha Closson, Kim Rome, Katherine Visconti, Daniel Arkin, Todd Robinson, David Rambo, Denitria Harris-Lawrence, Mick Betancourt, Bryan Gracia