In competition, Amazon Studios is in final talks for the package The Pick Up, with Eddie Murphy eyeing to star and Tim Story attached to direct. John Davis and John Fox will produce through his Davis Entertainment banner. Murphy and Charisse Hewitt-Webster also are in talks to produce through Eddie Murphy Productions, and Story also will be a producer.
The package is based on a spec script written by Kevin Burrows and Matt Mider, and the prospect of the elements drove the bidding up to seven figures for the script, sources said. Three others bid for it. The scribes teamed on the 2018 comedy The Package and created the Condé Nast series Gentlemen Lobsters.
Sources called it a heist comedy in the Bad Boys, and Murphy would play a guy who becomes smitten with a woman and finds himself mixed up in a heist attempt. The scribes’ most recent spec Shots! Shots! Shots! was picked up by Universal for Jason Momoa to star in and produce with Dan Lin.
Murphy and Davis have made five films together, the most recent of which is Netflix’s Dolemite Is My Name, a Critics Choice Award winner for Best Comedy. Murphy recently starred with Jonah Hill in the Netflix comedy You People.
Story’s next up is The Blackening, which Lionsgate acquired after its Toronto premiere and is slotted for release June 16th, which is Juneteenth.
Story is repped by UTA and attorney Matt Johnson, Murphy by WME and Ziffrin Brittenham, and Burrows & Mider are with WME and Silver Lake Entertainment’s Yuli Masinovsky.
Source: Deadline
