The ONE CHICAGO Bosses Tease the Biggest Crossover Yet

On Wednesday, October 16, NBC’s CHICAGO shows cross over for arguably the biggest 3-hour block in the franchise’s history.

“I had an instance where I scraped my foot, and it was right on the edge of being infected,” ONE CHICAGO executive producer Dick Wolf told reporters in the video below. In addition to being tested for normal things, Wolf was thrown to be told he was being checked for MRSA, a dangerous infection. “He so casually said, ‘Oh, it’s out [in the public].'”

But as terrifying as that is, it inspired Wolf. At the kickoff dinner for the new season of the CHICAGO shows, he approached ONE CHICAGO executive producer Derek Haas with an idea for their next crossover.

“He’s like, ‘I want to do a biological weapon, like a weaponized bacteria, flesh-eating bacteria,'” Haas recalled. Wolf pitched it would happen at a Chicago Bears game and Haas replied back with the idea it could occur at a tailgating party pre-game, and a good way to get characters from all three shows involved. And thus the cold open was born.

Originally, Haas was going to write all three episodes of the crossover—based on an outline he crafted with Wolf—but he soon realized it was simply too much work.

To craft the episode, “we staggered our productions” to get as much cast involved in each hour, Haas explained, shooting over 30 days between the three shows. (Including filming on a new scene the week before the episodes aired.) “The difference between this crossover and the other ones is…[there’s] way more [of] all three shows in all three hours,” he said.

CHICAGO P.D. boss Rick Eid credited Haas’ outline with Wolf for setting the tone for the crossover, acknowledging the sheer amount of work everyone has to put into the shows. “They’re really hard, big event-type [episodes].”

“It’ll play like a movie,” CHICAGO MED co-showrunner Andrew Schneider added.

Of course, actually producing the episodes is its own challenge. “You’re the one who gets the immediate blame or praise; you’re the quarterback,” CHICAGO P.D. executive producer Eriq La Salle, who directed the P.D. hour of the crossover, acknowledged. “But everyone from my A.D. to my line producer, who is making it possible to do these big days [are great]…you look at it and go, ‘How are we going to pull it off?’ There’s a whole team that goes to work and say, ‘This is how we can do it’…the way that I approach everything, and my mantra on set, is how do you eat a dinosaur? One bite at a time.”

While all three series have significant individual storylines going on, many of those will be temporarily tabled as the teams attempt to save Chicago. “We kind of touch where people are a little bit,” CHICAGO MED co-showrunner Diane Frolov said. “But mostly it’s the event.”

“It’s non-stop action, big set pieces,” Haas added. “I can’t believe we got to do some of the things we got to do…It’s always worth it.”

For more on the crossover, check out what Wolf, Haas, Schneider, Frolov, Eid, and La Salle had to say…

Dick Wolf:

Derek Haas:

Andrew Schneider and Diane Frolov:

Rick Eid and Eriq La Salle:

RELATED:

• ONE CHICAGO Crossover: ‘Infection’ Photos
• CHICAGO MED: Brian Tee Teases an ‘Outrageous’ Patient that Divides the Staff
• CHICAGO FIRE: Miranda Rae Mayo on Stella’s New Job Opportunity
• CHICAGO P.D.: Patrick John Flueger and Marina Squerciati on Ruzek’s Return to the Team
• CHICAGO MED: Colin Donnell and Nick Gehlfuss Show Off the Set
• CHICAGO FIRE Boss on the Big Loss in ‘Sacred Ground’
• CHICAGO P.D. Boss on MED Borrowing Jay Halstead: ‘It Exists in its Own Universe’
• CHICAGO P.D.: LaRoyce Hawkins and Marina Squerciati Show Off the Real—and Reel—Elements of the 21st District

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