Not that long ago, there was an idea put forward by Dave Bautista on social media that he and Jason Momoa should get together and “do a Lethal Weapon style buddy cop movie” together. Within days that idea had become a real possibility, with the two friends coming together to develop the idea further, and now that finger in the air suggestion has been the subject of a four-way bidding war with MGM close to snapping up the rights to the movie and expected to complete the deal imminently according to reports from Deadline.
Momoa is one of the hottest properties in the business at the moment, currently appearing in Dune along with Dave Bautista, the Apple TV+ series See, again with Bautista in attendance, and the upcoming Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom…sadly with no Bautista, who is instead jumping back into his own superhero role of Drax in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, which kicked off filming last week. However, it is safe to say that had he not been otherwise engaged, it would not have been surprising to see the former wrestler turn up under the sea with his best pal. The attention around this new project is a clear sign of the winning formula the pair bring when they work together and to further boost the potential they have brought in See scribe Jonathan Tropper as scriptwriter.
Momoa and Bautista have spent the last week kicking the idea about through every and any door they could find, and have seemingly come out of it with some big deals done that will come into effect once the movie officially goes into production. It is impressive to think that less than three months ago the idea didn’t even exist, and now it is already set to be one of the biggest movies around when it drops in theaters somewhere down the line.
On August 19th, Bautista started the ball rolling by making the speculative comment of “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” on his Twitter account. This gained a lot of support from the actor’s followers and only days later Momoa appeared on The Late Late Show with James Corden and confirmed that Bautista had already spoken to him about the project and they were going to try their best to make it happen.
While the movie still has to find a director - and we will have to wait and see whether they can really pull off the unthinkable and also pull Leitch into the project as well - it seems to be moving ahead at some pace, and is proving that when a small group of people are passionate enough about something, there is nothing that can’t be achieved in a short time. However, even with all of these pieces in place, thanks to their in-demand status the movie won’t be able to begin filming until 2023, with their DC and Marvel projects currently taking center stage and the second Dune movie also shooting next year. Expect to see more about the project as it develops. This comes to us from Deadline.
