‘Lucifer’ Star Tom Ellis to Lead ‘FBI’ Spinoff on CBS

The Devil is taking up a new job.

TVLine reports that Lucifer star Tom Ellis has been cast in FBI’s newest offshoot.

The “FBI Universe Expansion,” initially titled FBI: CIA, is now just simply titled CIA. CBS has ordered the series for the 2025-26 season after the network canceled spinoffs FBI: Most Wanted and FBI: International. CIA was going to get a backdoor pilot during this current season of FBI, but since casting for the leads was ongoing, the episode kept getting pushed back, and then it was too late since filming was wrapping up.

CIA follows a fast-talking, rule-breaking loose cannon CIA case officer (Ellis) and a by-the-book, seasoned and smart FBI agent who believes in the rule of law. “When this odd couple are assigned to work out of CIA’s New York Station, they must learn to work together to investigate cases and criminals posing threats on U.S. soil, finding that their differences may actually be their strength,” per the CBS logline.

Despite the cancellations of Most Wanted and International, CIA was actually on track for a straight-to-series order, according to Deadline. Although it did hit a snag when the offer for the lead role didn’t pan out, now that Ellis has been cast and things are back in track, it seems CBS didn’t want to wait any longer.

As of now, Ellis’ on-screen partner and the female lead has not been cast, but it’s likely that news will be announced in the coming weeks now that the show has been ordered to series and Ellis has been cast. Dick Wolf, David Hudgins, Nicole Perlman, David Chasteen, and Peter Jankowski will serve as executive producers. David, who serves as showrunner on FBI: Most Wanted, will spearhead CIA, which comes from Universal Television, Wolf Entertainment, and CBS Studios.

Tom Ellis is best known for his role as Lucifer Morningstar on the Fox-turned-Netflix fantasy procedural Lucifer, which ran for six seasons from 2016 to 2021. He can most recently be seen on the second season of the Hulu drama Tell Me Lies, and voicing GodCat in the Netflix animated series Exploding Kittens. On the film side, he starred in the 2024 Netflix romcom Players and is set to star in the upcoming Netflix crime comedy The Thursday Murder Club alongside Helen Mirren, Pierce Brosnan, Ben Kingsley, David Tennant, and Richard E. Grant, among others.