Top Gun: Maverick Breakout to Lead ABC’s The Rookie Spin-Off

ABC is officially expanding The Rookie playbook, and it just found its new star. Jay Ellis is stepping in to lead The Rookie: North, and the network pulled the trigger on a pilot order the second he signed on. Smart timing, smart pick.

What The Rookie: North is actually about

Ellis will play Alex Holland, a man who signs up with the Pierce County Police Department in Washington state as its oldest rookie after a violent home invasion upends his life. Think the original premise, but swapped from Los Angeles streets to rural Pacific Northwest backroads. If you catch the wink in the character name, you are not imagining it: Alex Holland sure sounds like a nod to creator Alexi Hawley. And yes, Holland’s arc echoes John Nolan’s journey on The Rookie — midlife reset, new badge, uphill climb.

Who is making this thing

Creator Alexi Hawley is all-in: he wrote the pilot, will direct it, and is executive producing. He’s joined by Nathan Fillion, Mark Gordon, Bill Norcross, and Michelle Chapman on the EP roster, with Ellis also on board as a producer. It’s a legit franchise push, and Hawley knows this world — he co-created The Rookie: Feds and ran Netflix’s The Recruit. His company, Perfectman Pictures, has an overall deal with Lionsgate Television, so the pipeline is real.

Where the project came from (and how fast it is moving)

Hawley has been quietly shaping this for months. Back in May, he said he already had a script and was working through notes. By July, ABC was seriously eyeing it for a later round of pilot decisions (that second-cycle approach where the network holds some orders for the back half of the year). The catch: they would only order a pilot once they landed the right lead. They were targeting someone with Scott Speedman-level name recognition. Enter Ellis, and boom — pilot ordered.

"There’s a script, I’ve been doing some drafts and getting some notes."

"I think we are looking at shooting a pilot in the spring or late winter, so we are gearing up for that."

Translation: cameras are aiming to roll late winter or spring, pending the usual scheduling dominos.

The quick timeline

• December: First reports surface that ABC is developing a Rookie spinoff.
• May: Hawley says the script exists and he is revising it.
• July: ABC weighs the pilot in its second-cycle strategy; the order depends on locking a lead, ideally a Scott Speedman-caliber name.
• Early September: Hawley says they are targeting a late winter or spring pilot shoot.
• Now: Jay Ellis signs on as star and producer; ABC officially orders the pilot.

Why Jay Ellis makes sense here

Ellis has range and momentum. Right now he is on Hulu’s Not Suitable For Work, recurs on Netflix’s Running Point, and appears in Peacock’s limited series All Her Fault. You probably know him from Insecure, Top Gun: Maverick, and Freaky Tales. He brings movie heat and TV chops, which is exactly what ABC was hunting for.

A couple of fun notes

That Alex Holland name? It is a playful mirror to Alexi Hawley, and the setup is a deliberate riff on The Rookie’s original spark — a normal guy’s life gets derailed, so he starts over in uniform, only this time with Washington state forests instead of LA freeways. Also worth flagging: Nathan Fillion is executive producing here, so the mothership’s DNA is very much in the mix.