Few showrunners have ever faced what Shawn Ryan did in the past few years while heading up CBS’ S.W.A.T. The drama was first officially canceled back in 2022, then was renewed for a “final” season, only for that decision to be reversed, eventually leading to the third cancellation announcement in March 2025. Here’s hoping that won’t be a pattern on everything he works on in the future, especially now that he’s landed quite a major follow-up project.
Also a co-creator on Netflix’s spy thriller The Night Agent, which will deliver Season 3 faster than expected to fans with Netflix subscriptions, Ryan is now heading up the new streaming series American Hostage. After working with the ever-studly and talented Shemar Moore for the past eight years, he’ll now have the — [checks notes] — also ever-studly and talented Jon Hamm slotted in for a lead role. At least for one season, as this project will utilize a high-octane anthology format.
American Hostage, which Ryan co-created alongside fellow Mad Dogs creative Eileen Myers (Big Love), is based on the hit scripted podcast of the same name, which also features Hamm in the lead role of Fred Heckman. The story being told is a dramatization of the real-life 1977 incident where the financially strapped Tony Kiritsis kidnapped his mortgage broker Richard O. Hall and held him hostage, under the belief that he was being set up.
The streaming service MGM+ snatched up the rights to American Hostage, which first went into development with Ryan and Hamm back in November 2023, back when S.W.A.T. Season 8 was still just a pipe dream. And it sounds like the platform's head honcho is excited to bring this story to life, saying:
This is a fascinating story about real people engaged in a real-time life-or-death struggle to keep a desperate hostage situation from spinning out of control, and I can’t think of a more gifted actor on whom to center the story than Jon.
MGM+ head Michael Wright
Sadly, this series won't be set up in time to make it an upcoming 2025 TV show, and it'll likely debut somewhere around mid-2026, though that's just speculating. The plan is for production to kick off this fall in Winnipeg, Canada.
I was hoping that this official announcement would confirm more cast members joining Jon Hamm for the new show. The podcast co-starred the always excellent Carla Gugino, Dylan Baker, and Joseph Perrino, and each would be equally great in live-action, but scheduling is obviously a factor that would make or break such returns.
But I can't imagine that anyone would balk at co-starring with Jon Hamm in a new streaming show if time allowed. He recently co-starred in Taylor Sheridan's Landman opposite Billy Bob Thornton and Demi Moore, but that show's Season 1 finale kind of took his character out of the equation, thus allowing the actor to jump into a new leading role.
With news also breaking the same day about Bill Hader potentially heading up a new drama series based on the Jonestown tragedy, there's no end in sight to high-profile true crime cases. I wonder if that's where Shemar Moore will pop up next…
