Director Reveals Plans 11 Years Later

Because the director makes his approach again to the motion style, Luke Greenfield has an thrilling replace about the way forward for Let’s Be Cops. The 2014 movie marked Greenfield’s return to authentic storytelling after helming the adaptation of Something Borrowed, being impressed by his personal expertise impersonating police for a hidden-camera comedy and centering on two buddies down on their luck who start taking their preliminary enjoyable of pretending to be LAPD officers somewhat too critically.

Led by New Lady vets Jake Johnson and Damon Wayans Jr., Let’s Be Cops overcame lackluster vital opinions to turn out to be a field workplace smash, grossing almost $140 million towards its $17 million manufacturing finances. The years since have seen Johnson and Wayans Jr. reunite for a handful of issues, together with Netflix’s Hoops and a buddy comedy they had been writing collectively. Nevertheless, even whereas the unique Let’s Be Cops ended with Johnson’s character turning into an official police officer, the film by no means acquired a correct follow-up.

In a current interview with ScreenRant‘s Grant Hermanns to debate his new action-comedy Playdate, Luke Greenfield opened up about why Let’s Be Cops 2 by no means occurred. The author/director started by describing the film as being “expensive to me“, given it was “based mostly on [the] true story“ of his hidden-camera comedy impersonation of police:

I’ve a f—ed-up humorousness. I used to be doing a hidden digital camera present, and I acquired arrested. And once I acquired arrested, I needed to do group service, which then made me create Position Fashions. So each films are based mostly on real-life experiences.

He then went on to disclose that there “was loads of discuss at first a couple of sequel” to Let’s Be Cops, notably because the film grew to become a field workplace success. Nevertheless, as he shared, these talks finally began to wane amidst the political unrest in Ferguson, Missouri within the wake of the deadly taking pictures of Michael Brown by FPD officer Darren Wilson. “There was loads of destructive stuff on the market,” Greenfield recalled.

Regardless of the preliminary hurdles, although, Greenfield shared that “I need to reboot that film very badly“, sharing that there was “a lot I did not get into” Let’s Be Cops. Recalling having executed the impersonation in LA and New York, and due to this fact having “been in actual hazard“, the author/director affirmed large plans for extra:

I am an entire fool, however should you love the film, get excited, as a result of it is both going to be a reboot, or I’ve a lot materials, it’d really be a kick-a– TV sequence.

Let’s Be Cops is definitely not the primary movie to seek out its launch impacted in some capability by real-world occasions. The ensemble sci-fi comedy The Watch infamously had its title modified from Neighborhood Watch after the tragic killing of Trayvon Martin by neighorhood watch member George Zimmerman, whereas the Ryan Gosling-led Gangster Squad needed to scrap and retool a whole sequence involving a theater shootout after an analogous incidence in Aurora, Colorado.

The place these films discovered themselves underperforming, or bombing totally, on the field workplace, Let’s Be Cops was really capable of overcome the mixed hurdles of destructive opinions and the Ferguson unrest to turn out to be a monetary success. This sort of success can be the most effective boon for a studio to contemplate a sequel, particularly Disney, now that they personal the rights to Greenfield’s movie after their acquisition of twentieth Century Fox.

One other potential profit for Greenfield’s possibilities to deliver Let’s Be Cops again for extra is that the police comedy style is not as outstanding because it as soon as was. With many storytellers taking a dramatic strategy to depicting regulation enforcement, in an effort to faucet into the social injustices that resulted in Martin, Brown and quite a few others’ deaths, the few comedic standouts of the bunch in recent times have been the newest Dangerous Boys and Beverly Hills Cop sequels, which did nonetheless turn out to be hits, as plans for extra of every are in improvement.

If Greenfield and Disney/Fox can benefit from this dearth of humorous portrayals of regulation enforcement, the subsequent Let’s Be Cops could possibly be even greater than the primary, be it a sequel, reboot or TV present. Moreover, with the author/director clearly acknowledging the affect real-world occasions have on fictional tales, he might evolve his system from the primary movie to combine its goofy comedic premise with impactful social commentary.