Now here’s a project that, from out of nowhere, has leapt to the top of our must-see list: Bruce Willis will star with 30 Rock’s wonderful Tracy Morgan in the action comedy A Couple Of Cops, which will mark the first major studio directing gig for one of Empire’s favourite peeps, Mr. Kevin Smith.
In another first for Wor Kev, Smith won’t be doubling up as writer. Instead, the script for this was written by the team of Robb and Marc Cullen, and was deemed good enough – back when it was known as the slightly more risqué **A Couple Of Dicks **- to make last year’s Black List, a list of the best unproduced screenplays in Hollywood. Well, it shall remain unproduced no longer!
The plot will see Willis and Morgan – so good as the demented megastar Tracy Jordan on the funniest show on the telly – play two cops who have to track down a stolen baseball card (don’t laugh; those things can get pretty valuable in the States), while tangling with mobsters and a mysterious Mexican beauty (paging Salma! Paging Salma!).
Sounds very Shane Black to us, and of course that brings back happy, warm memories of the magnificent The Last Boy Scout, possibly Willis’ greatest buddy picture to date. He hasn’t made a movie like this in a while, and so we’re hugely excited. We’re also intrigued to see how Morgan will fare outside the confines of **30 Rock **and, indeed, what Smith will do with a script that’s not his own.
The movie had been set up at Gold Circle last year, with Robin Williams and James Gandolfini set to star (all due respect to them, but Willis/Morgan is a definite upgrade). But when it fell apart in acrimonious circumstances (with Williams suing for $6 million he felt was due to him under the terms of a pay-or-play deal), Warners swooped in, and recalibrated the project for its new team of talent.
Marc Platt will produce the movie.