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 variation of One thing Borrowed, being impressed by his personal expertise impersonating police for a hidden-camera comedy and centering on two pals down on their luck who start taking their preliminary enjoyable of pretending to be LAPD officers a little bit too significantly.

Led by New Woman vets Jake Johnson and Damon Wayans Jr., Let’s Be Cops overcame lackluster vital evaluations to grow to be a field workplace smash, grossing practically $140 million towards its $17 million manufacturing funds. 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 received 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 “pricey to me“, given it was “primarily based 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 received arrested. And once I received arrested, I needed to do neighborhood service, which then made me create Function Fashions. So each motion pictures are primarily based on real-life experiences.

He then went on to disclose that there “was lots of discuss at first a few sequel” to Let’s Be Cops, notably because the film turned a field workplace success. Nevertheless, as he shared, these talks ultimately began to wane amidst the political unrest in Ferguson, Missouri within the wake of the deadly capturing of Michael Brown by FPD officer Darren Wilson. “There was lots of damaging 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 performed the impersonation in LA and New York, and due to this fact having “been in actual hazard“, the author/director affirmed huge plans for extra:

I am a whole fool, however in the event 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 truly be a kick-a– TV collection.

Let’s Be Cops is definitely not the primary movie to search 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 the same prevalence in Aurora, Colorado.

The place these motion pictures discovered themselves underperforming, or bombing completely, on the field workplace, Let’s Be Cops was truly in a position to overcome the mixed hurdles of damaging evaluations and the Ferguson unrest to grow to be a monetary success. This type of success could be the perfect boon for a studio to think about 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 probabilities to deliver Let’s Be Cops again for extra is that the police comedy style is now not as distinguished because it as soon as was. With many storytellers taking a dramatic method to depicting legislation 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 most recent Unhealthy Boys and Beverly Hills Cop sequels, which did nonetheless grow 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 legislation enforcement, the following Let’s Be Cops may very well 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 may evolve his method from the primary movie to combine its goofy comedic premise with impactful social commentary.