Laurence Fishburne confirmed for 'CSI'

Laurence Fishburne will replace William Petersen as the lead in CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, confirms The Hollywood Reporter.

The actor will enter the show in episode nine of the upcoming ninth season. He will portray a pathologist who is working as a college lecturer specialising in criminalistics. During the course of a murder investigation, his character joins the Las Vegas Crime Lab as a Level-1 CSI.

CSI executive producer Carol Mendelsohn said: "This has been months in the making. We have been talking about the character we wanted to create and pursuing our dream casting, which is Laurence Fishburne."

Fishburne's character, known only as "the professor" at this point, will appear with departing lead Petersen (Gil Grissom) in two episodes.

"[Gil] will definitely have an opinion on who this guy is," said executive producer Naren Shankar. "The idea is to see a lot of Billy and Laurence together."