The buddy-cop comedy trend has started to show its age, slowing down to just a stray reference from Mark Ruffalo about the vibe of Thor: Ragnarok here, and a pilot from Elizabeth Banks there. But just as it was looking ready to admit it’s too old for this shit, the well-worn premise has gotten a promising kick in the pants. Deadline reports John Cena and Kumail Nanjiani are teaming up to play police officers who develop a grudging respect (and fondness) for each other in a movie from Zombieland director Ruben Fleischer.
Tour De Pharmacy producer and scribe Murray Miller will write the film, which is currently being eyed by Universal. Fleischer lined up the project in 2016, when it was announced that he was making a kind of Cops and Lethal Weapon hybrid. There’s not much other info on Cena and Nanjiani’s roles in the as-yet-untitled picture, but we can safely assume there will be some misunderstanding early on that leads to tensions between the pair, who will just have to find some way to work with each other without killing each other, goddammit. Nanjiani’s been part of a hilarious ensemble on Silicon Valley for four seasons, but he broke out as a leading man with his and Emily V. Gordon’s The Big Sick earlier this year. And Cena’s been beefing up his comedy cred with minor roles in Trainwreck and Sisters, so he and Nanjiani could very well breathe new life into this old dynamic.