The new issue of TV Guide has William Petersen talking about his imminent departure from CSI. He’s being replaced by the great Laurence Fishburne. But the interesting thing is that in the process of saying goodbyes to his audience, Petersen also dropped a few hints about the possibility of a CSI movie.

When asked if the next step for his career was returning to movies, Petersen said, “If this was about going off and making films, I’d stay on CSI. I’d love to see us make a CSI film.” His implication there, it would seem, is that if he’d stuck around they might be putting together a CSI feature. In fact, it sounds like the possibility of making a movie is one of the reasons they aren’t killing him off. He says, “That’s the other reason Grissom isn’t going to die of a brain tumor.”

I’ve never watched an episode of CSI, and I’ve never actually met anyone who watches it regularly, but the show’s Baywatch-like ratings do seem to indicate that it inexplicably has a huge number of fans. The number of copycat shows it has spawned are I suppose, proof positive of its popularity. Observes Petersen, “It could be good if we did it right. The whole world is interested in the show.”