Is the ‘Criminal Minds’ Revival Happening Soon?

Meredith Jacobs July 13, 2022, 11:23 am

Kirsten Vangsness, Aisha Tyler, Matthew Gray Gubler, Adam Rodriguez, A.J. Cook, Joe Mantegna on Criminal Minds — Richard Cartwright / ©CBS / Courtesy: Everett Collection

UPDATE:

A Criminal Minds revival has officially been ordered, with six members of the original series cast returning.

Original story:

One year after Criminal Minds ended its 15-season run in 2020 on CBS, news broke of a revival coming to Paramount+. But we have received scarce details since. Now, however, it seems that might be changing.

Joe Mantegna, who played David Rossi starting in Season 3, shared a photo of himself on the beginnings of a very-familiar looking set. “Just doing a little inspection today for an upcoming project,” he wrote, along with the hashtag for Criminal Minds, with the photo on Twitter. See it below.

Just doing a little inspection today for an upcoming project. #criminalminds pic.twitter.com/fz9nrigXIm

— Joe Mantegna (@JoeMantegna) July 12, 2022

When the Paramount+ revival was first announced, it was said to be 10 episodes, with the team reuniting “to investigate a single, fascinating case.” The Behavioral Analysis Unit (BAU) hunting down the UnSubs when the series ended included Rossi, Emily Prentiss (Paget Brewster), Dr. Spencer Reid (Matthew Gray Gubler), Jennifer “J.J.” Jareau (A.J. Cook), Luke Alvez (Adam Rodriguez), Dr. Tara Lewis (Aisha Tyler), and Matt Simmons (Daniel Henney). (Kirsten Vangsness’ Penelope Garcia left the FBI for nonprofit work.) In February 2022, we then learned about who could potentially be returning for the revival: Mantegna, Vangsness (suggesting that Garcia either doesn’t stay with the nonprofit work or pulls double duty — the team needs its tech genius, after all!), Rodriguez, Cook, Tyler, and Brewster.

Furthermore, Brewster spoke about the revival in an interview with Decider in June. “There are people who have been hired in preproduction, but none of the cast have signed their contracts yet. So I believe that ABC and CBS are still working out a licensing agreement. They have good faith, I believe, that we will be moving forward,” she said. “We’ve been told, ‘Visit your family now, because in a couple of months, it’s not gonna happen.’ So we’re all very confident that it’s going to happen. … We all agreed in November: ‘Yes, we’re all onboard, we’re ready to sign.’ So there’s clearly some other structure that needs to be figured out before we can start. But we’re all very, very optimistic.”