Sean Harmon | Entertainment News, Photos, and Videos

The NCIS franchise is expanding, and it’s thriving more than ever.

In celebration of the series’ 1,000th episode airing on April 15, CBS Studios President David Stapf and CBS’ Entertainment President Amy Reisenbach sat down for an interview with Deadline about the future of the successful series.

NCIS is now the largest procedural franchise ever with five current series, with an estimated global audience of more than 300 million viewers!

During the conversation, they spoke about the expanded NCIS universe, storylines involving fan-favorite characters, and much more.

Click through to find out what they had to say…

NCIS: Origins is coming soon, and the series will feature several familiar faces!

The NCIS prequel CBS series, set in 1991, will center around how the character of Leroy Jethro Gibbs came to be who he is today.

The show sees Gibbs as a “newly minted special agent at the fledgling NCIS Camp Pendleton office where he forges his place on a gritty, ragtag team led by NCIS legend Mike Franks,” via the network.

And now, we know there are other NCIS characters getting a backstory in the series!

Click through to see which other characters will appear…