Who knew so many people wanted to see Jason Momoa and Dave Bautista in a buddy action comedy? The concept caused a bidding war between four different entities but “Deadline” is reporting that MGM is near closing the deal that should be official at some point today.
Momoa and Bautista have been pitching the idea all over town this week. Jonathan Tropper will be writing the project and the pitch finds the duo playing brothers in a Lethal Weapon-Esque buddy cop comedy that will likely shoot in Hawaii. The actors and writer are connected through the Apple TV+ drama series, See, and the idea is an original one from Momoa, Bautista, and Tropper. MGM will develop it but the leads will have pretty lucrative deals once the film goes into production.
The groundswell for this union began back in August when Bautista tweeted, “Just going to throw this out into the atmosphere and see what happens. Here we go…Me and Momoa in a Lethal Weapon type buddy cop movie directed by David Leitch. Ok! There it is. Now we wait.” Momoa went on to reinforce the idea when he appeared on The Late Late Show with James Corden days later. He admitted that they text all the time and that the idea is to shoot in Hawaii if it happens. Fast forward to now. It’s happening. It created a bidding war and now the project just needs a director.
The goal is to shoot the project in 2023 because both actors have very busy schedules at the moment. Funnily enough, they both appear in Dune right now but they don’t have scenes together. They also share the common fortune of being a part of lucrative franchises that are currently still shooting. Momoa is hard at work on the sequel Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom while Bautista is filming Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 and should also be appearing in the Dune sequel as well.
What are YOUR thoughts on the Momoa and Bautista buddy cop action comedy?