Ryan Reynolds, Channing Tatum to Star in Movie "Calamity Hustle"

 Warner Bros. has won a weeklong auction for the action comedy movie "Calamity Hustle", starring Ryan Reynolds and Channing Tatum.  

All the studios were in on this, but it came down to Amazon, Netflix, and Warner Bros. Led by production chiefs Michael De Luca and Pam Abdy, Warners stepped up for the kind of star-driven movie that fueled the studio’s fortunes back in the day.

Adam and Aaron Nee direct from a script they wrote. The spec is likened in tone to the mismatched buddy actioner like Lethal Weapon, and the hope is to launch a franchise. 

Reynolds will play a cop who is estranged from his low-level criminal brother (Tatum). They grew up on the wrong side of the tracks and went in the opposite direction. When the sibling is implicated as part of a diamond heist, the cop must hunt him down before those he ripped off.

The film will be shot in New York, Los Angeles, and Las Vegas. It will be set around the holiday season — it worked for Lethal Weapon and Die Hard — and there will be big action set pieces. 

There was speculation about the budget when the package was first floated; sources said the hope is to deliver it for $140 million. The stars will make in the $25 million range guaranteed, with strong backends. Like I said, Warner Bros stepped up.

Kevin J. Walsh (Napoleon) is producing through the Walsh Company, along with Tatum’s Free Association and Reynolds’ Maximum Effort, and Nee’s Persons Attempting, which is run by John Will. Free Association’s Reid Carolin and Peter Kiernan are also producing.

The Nee Brothers reunite with Tatum from the action comedy hit "The Lost City", and the duo will put this project over Masters of the Universe at Amazon, and the next Lego movie at Universal. Both of these were in the $175M-$200M range, but they wanted to work on something new that they hatched, rather than work on pre-existing IP.