CBS Opens Development Room for 'Strike Force,' Reuniting Chicago PD's Jesse Lee Soffer and Matt Olmstead

CBS has opened a development room for a new law enforcement drama called Strike Force, with Chicago PD veteran Jesse Lee Soffer attached to star and executive produce, per Variety.

The series is being developed to potentially launch during the 2027–2028 broadcast season — the US television season that traditionally begins in late September. Opening a development room means CBS has funded a writers' room to begin breaking stories and drafting scripts before the network decides whether to order the show to series.

Matt Olmstead is writing and executive producing Strike Force. Olmstead co-created Chicago PD with Dick Wolf and served as that show's showrunner — the top creative executive on a television series — for four seasons. He and Soffer first worked together on Chicago PD, then re-teamed on the CBS series FBI: International, where Olmstead was a writer and executive producer and Soffer joined for the show's fourth and final season.

Jerry Bruckheimer and KristieAnne Reed round out the executive producing team via Jerry Bruckheimer TV. CBS Studios is the production company behind the project.

The Strike Force logline describes a battle-tested DEA agent, played by Soffer, who returns home to Kansas City to lead a multi-agency strike force targeting violent criminals in America's heartland. That premise puts Soffer back in familiar territory — network law enforcement drama — while shifting the setting from Chicago to Kansas City and the agency from police to the Drug Enforcement Administration.

Soffer is best known for playing Senior Detective Jay Halstead on Chicago PD, a role he held for ten seasons before departing. During that run he also appeared in Chicago Med, Chicago Fire, and a crossover episode with Law & Order: SVU. His earlier television credits include the long-running soap As the World Turns. He is represented by UTA and Ethos Entertainment.

What makes this stand out is the reunion at its centre. Soffer and Olmstead have now collaborated across two procedural dramas, and Strike Force brings them together a third time on a brand-new property rather than an extension of an existing franchise. For CBS, the project pairs a proven procedural showrunner with a lead actor audiences already know from a decade on one of NBC's most durable dramas.

The show is in early stages. A development room is a starting point, not a guarantee — many projects that reach this stage do not advance to a series order. CBS has not announced an episode count, a premiere date, or additional casting.

For now, Strike Force exists as scripts in progress, a star attached, and a network deciding whether the slot is worth filling.