A year has passed since Jonah Hill’s announced involvement with a bigscreen adaptation of the hit show “21 Jump Street.” That sort of hiatus suggests a project is dead, but not so, says Hill. Speaking to Complex, he says that the approach will be comedic, but not necessarily a departure from the source.
Says Hill: “Yeah, if you look at the opening episode of ‘21 Jump Street,’ you see a man looking at a picture of a cop holding a little boy’s hand, and you hear a crazy saxophone solo, and you pan up and it’s Johnny Depp looking at the picture playing the crazy saxophone solo. We’re not even spoofing the movie. It’s not strictly comedic, either. We’re doing a full-on action movie, blowing shit up.” Hill goes on to emphasize the action approach, claiming Sony approached Hill for a comedic take and he responded with an “R-rated, insane ‘Bad Boys’ meets John Hughes-type movie.”
Hill is only signed to develop and produce the film, but with the total control he has over the project, there’s the thought he’ll want to star in it, and possibly write it. While the Judd Apatow players have been branching out to successful behind-the-scenes careers, Hill has no writing credits to his name, save for the script for “Pure Imagination,” an optimistic romantic fantasy that Hill discussed in detail a few years ago but has yet to materialize, and his only producing credit is as an “associate producer” on “Bruno”- which could mean that he threw around ideas with Sacha Baron Cohen and co., or he bought drugs for the entire crew, or he secretly ghost-directed it- really pretty fucking nebulous. Hill HAS sold a script- he’s starring in “The Adventurer’s Handbook” with Jason Schwartzmann, which he co-wrote for a princely sum, so somebody thinks Hill is up to the task. Still, the idea that Hill’s first powerful position in Hollywood will be overseeing a likely-expensive brand name action movie with Neal Moritz and Stephen J. Cannell seems optimistic. Then again, the Apatow Players have surprised us before…