"If we ended up doing [the movie] as a prequel and going back before the first season, obviously there's a lot of things that could change. If we go for it much further down the line from where the show is, again, there's a lot of room to change. It depends on the timing that they choose to set the film in."
"[The timing issue] is something the writers are working on right now," Sutherland added. "But the sky's the limit at that point for them, because we would not be restricted by the time element."
The possibility of a prequel will undoubtedly set the fingers of chat-room-savvy fans wiggling on their keyboards faster than Chloe data-mining a thumb drive. It could hearken back to a time when Jack was actually still collecting a paycheck from the Counter-Terrorism Unit and, [spoilers ahead]...
http://www.mtv.com/movies/news/articles/1528309/04102006/story.jhtml