NCIS: Origins co-creator/executive producer David J. North, who served as co-showrunner on the CBS series for its first two seasons, has signed an overall deal with the studio behind the prequel, CBS Studios. Under the pact, he will create, develop and produce projects for broadcast and streaming.
He also will continue on NCIS: Origins in his new role as sole showrunner next season.
North created NCIS: Origins with Gina Lucita Monreal. The two have served as co-showrunners for the past two seasons, currently finishing Season 2 together. As Deadline reported last month, Monreal will be departing at the end of the current season.
NCIS: Origins, which has been renewed for Season 3, returns from winter break with new episodes on March 3.
The series, narrated and executive produced by former NCIS star Mark Harmon, follows a young Leroy Jethro Gibbs (Austin Stowell) in the early ‘90s, years prior to the events of NCIS. Season 2 delves deeper into the NCIS Camp Pendleton team, led by the Mike Franks, as well as Gibbs’ early career as a special agent, and reveals the fate of Lala after last season’s devastating car crash.
North is a homegrown NCIS talent. Shortly after graduating from Indiana University in 2003, he joined the support staff of the then newly-ordered mothership series. Two years later, he joined the writing staff and rose up the ranks to producer. After penning the Season 6 finale, North left NCIS and spent years writing for such crime dramas as TNT/Warner Bros. TV’s Rizzoli & Isles and CBS/CBS Studios’ Scorpion and NCIS: Los Angeles. He returned to NCIS in Season 14 as executive producer/co-showrunner and co-wrote star Harmon’s farewell episode before moving into Origins. North is repped by Dan Halsted at Manage-Ment and Law Office of David Tenzer.
