21 Jump Street may be rebooted without Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill, as Tiffany Haddish and Awkwafina are reportedly being eyed to replace them.
According to Collider, the two actresses are Sony’s top choices to star in a female-centric reboot of the action/comedy franchise.
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Haddish is reportedly already in talks to be the lead in the new film, with sources indicating that Awkwafina is not yet signed on but the studio is very interested in having her join.
Both Haddish and Awkwafina are high profile stars right now, so it makes sense that the studio would be interested in them for the leads.
This year alone, Haddish has had audiences laughing out loud in four films: Uncle Drew, The Oath, Night School, and Nobody’s Fool. Next up, she will voice animated characters in The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part and The Secret Life of Pets 2, and will appear alongside Rose Byrne and Salma Hayek in the comedy Limited Partners.
Awkwafina wowed moviegoers in two films this year, Ocean’s 8 and Crazy Rich Asians. She also hosted Saturday Night Live earlier this season. In an interview with Billboard earlier this year, the actress shared what the auditioning process for Crazy Rich Asians was like.
“I know there had been open casting calls. I had picked up the book years ago inside an airport Hudson News, and just remember thinking, “What is this?” It was a huge sensation, so when I found out that they were doing a film adaptation, I knew then and there that it was a huge deal that they were [making the movie],” she recalled.
“Months later, my agent and manager contacted me to let me know that [the filmmakers] wanted me to come in and see me for the role of Peik Lin Goh. I was like, “Oh, God, this is crazy,” because it’s not only my favorite character in the book, but the one I could see myself the closest to playing,” the star added.
“I flew out to Los Angeles, auditioned in front of the director [Jon Chu] and producer [Nina Jacobson], and Jon asked me to deliver some lines in Chinese. I thought at the time he was being a trickster, but I realized it was because he really wanted his actors to be as authentic as possible, so I spoke a little Mandarin,” she went on to say.
“I didn’t hear from them for a while, but just a few weeks before the production flew out to Singapore, I got the call offering me the part. It was a long process, but I think Jon really knew what he wanted, and I think he was just making sure that the characters were cast with the right actors,” she finally said.
Reports of a Jump Street reboot without Tatum and Hill surfaced in early October, when Columbia Pictures president Sanford Panitch spoke to Variety about the studio’s plans.
“We think that there’s something fun about keeping that irreverent spirit of Jump Street, but maybe having it be told through a female undercover cop point-of-view,” he said. “We’ve had enough male buddy comedies. The script is really funny and has a freshness to it.”
