Back in February, word arrived that New Line had decided to take yet another crack at the John Shaft character played so memorably by Richard Roundtree in 1971 and (in the form of his nephew) Samuel L. Jackson in 2000. We don’t yet know who will be filling that iconic role, but we do know who will be putting words in his mouth, with TV writer/producers Kenya Barris and Alex Barnow snagging the job{
According to The Hollywood Reporter, it looks like the studio and producer John Davis are hewing closer to the** 21 Jump Street** model this time, though probably not quite as wacky. Still, the presence of two men who are currently working on sitcoms points to the tone that the company is looking for.
Barris is the brain behind Anthony Anderson-starring comedy show Black-ish, in which a black family man deals with his kids endlessly adopting the white touchstones of their upper-class neighbourhood. Barnow works on The Goldbergs, which draws on creator Adam F, Goldberg’s childhood to power an ‘80s-set sitcom. The duo has experience writing together – they sold an untitled comedy script about a man starting to hear Ice Cube’s voice in his head to New Line earlier this year.