Another day, another big bid-off for the rights to a Ryan Reynolds project: Deadline reports that Warner Bros. had the right price for “Calamity Hustle,” an action comedy with Reynolds and Channing Tatum. Thus concludes a weeklong bidding war that came down to Amazon MGM, Netflix, and Warner Bros. This comes one day after Netflix snagged the rights to a heist comedy starring Reynolds with Shawn Levy directing. But Amazon outbid everyone for “Best Of Enemies” with Bradley Cooper and Christian Bale yesterday, so all three of those studios got a big prize.
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But back to “Calamity Hustle.” The film hit the market earlier this month as Hollywood continues to find its legs post-strikes. And from the sounds of things, this action comedy is in a similar vein to “Lethal Weapon” and “Die Hard.” Reynolds will play a cop estranged from his low-level criminal brother played by Tatum. When Tatum gets implicated as part of diamond heist around the holiday season, Reynolds must track down his brother before those he ripped off do.
Adam & Aaron Nee will co-write and co-direct the picture, with Michael De Luca and Pam Abdy leading production. Other producers include Kevin J. Walsh through the Walsh Company, Tatum’s Free Association and Reynolds’ Maximum Effort, and the Nees’ Persons Attempting. Reid Carolin and Peter Kiernan also produce through Free Association. The Nees plan to shoot “Calamity Hustle” in NYC, LA, and Las Vegas on a $140 million budget, with Reynolds and Tatum both getting $25 million salaries.
“Calamity Hustle” will be a reunion between Tatum and the Nees, who last worked together on “The Lost City.” The directing duo had offers to do other projects, like “Masters Of The Universe” for Amazon or the next “Lego” movie for Universal. But the Nees preferred an original project over pre-existing IP and jumped on working with Tatum again. Speaking of Tatum, add this movie to his list of upcoming projects alongside his fiance Zoë Kravtiz‘s “Pussy Island” and “Project Artemis.” Reynolds of course has “Deadpool 3” up next for him, as well as “IF,” his Netflix heist movie, and a slew of other projects.
