The term "too soon" is thrown around quite a bit when talking about Hollywood's current reboot obsession, but this one really may take the cake. Producer Joel Silver is currently working on a TV series based on The Nice Guys, a movie directed by Shane Black that was released just last year. Silver also served as a producer on the movie. What's more? The show is going to be a gender-swapped version, featuring females in the lead roles.
Variety reports that The Nice Guys TV show, appropriately titled The Nice Girls, is being developed for Fox as a one-hour drama series. The show doesn't sound like it is too far into development, but the network has ordered a pilot script. 30 Minutes or Less writer Michael Diliberti has been tapped to pen the script and will also serve as an executive producer on the series, alongside Joel Silver, Rodney Ferrell and Ken Kao. The TV series is a co-production between Lionsgate, 20th Century Fox Television, and Silver Pictures Television and is part of Silver's overall deal with Lionsgate.
The Nice Guys being done as a gender-swapped TV series seems to fit a handful of different trends that are going on in Hollywood right now. For one, reboots are all the rage and seemingly nothing is sacred. Also, gender-swapping projects is something that is happening more frequently. Not to mention the number of movies that are being turned into TV shows. But to have a movie from just over a year ago already being turned into a TV series is pretty unusual. No matter how unusual, Fox had luck by bringing back Lethal Weapon as a TV series recently, which was also from the mind of Shane Black originally. So why not go after another cop movie he made?
As a movie, The Nice Guys was a bit of a mixed bag in terms of quantifying its success. The movie was one of the most well-liked releases of 2016, currently boasting a 92 percent on Rotten Tomatoes. However, that didn't exactly translate to box office success. The Ryan Gosling and Russell Crowe cop flick brought in just $62.7 million worldwide working from a reported budget of $50 million. That's far from a success, but the movie has found an audience since its home video release. Maybe it was something that was always destined to work better as a procedural cop show.
Variety doesn't make any mention of who is being eyed to star at this time. However, since Fox hasn't even committed to filming a pilot for The Nice Girls yet, it may be a little premature to have those conversations. Maybe they can get Shane Black to come on board to direct the pilot? If they can capture the tone of the movie from week-to-week, this show could be great. Then again, it is being described as a "drama," so a lot of the comedy could disappear in this version.