Sterling K. Brown And Randall Park Will Star In A Buddy Action Movie For Amazon

By Ben PearsonAug. 17, 2021 2:35 pm EST

Sterling K. Brown (This Is Us) and Randall Park (Fresh Off the Boat) have signed on to play former childhood pals who are at each other's throats as adults in a new action comedy from Amazon Studios. The film does not have a title yet, but writer Alex Tse (Wu-Tang: An American Saga, Zack Snyder's Watchmen) is hard at work on the screenplay. Read on for details about the upcoming movie.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Sterling K. Brown and Randall Park are teaming up for this untitled action comedy that's being compared to Walter Hill's classic buddy cop classic 48 Hrs. The outlet says "the story centers on two estranged childhood best friends, to be played by Brown and Park, who now find themselves on opposite sides of the law. Framed and on the run, the two must survive each other long enough to clear their names and stop an international criminal enterprise."

Yes, please. Both of these actors are fun to watch, so tossing them into an action comedy stew and letting them cook feels like it could yield some amusing results. Brown, who's best known for his dramatic work, recently dipped his toe in the action genre with The Predator, Hotel Artemis, and Black Panther, while Park did the same in Ant-Man and the Wasp and WandaVision.

It's Tough Out There for Action Comedies

It seems as if action comedies are tougher to pull off these days than they were in their heyday of the 1980s and '90s. Maybe it's because a ton of high-concept premises have already been cycled through, or because every modern blockbuster superhero movie seems to have co-opted and completely taken over the genre, but even excellent films like Shane Black's The Nice Guys from 2016 feel incredibly rare in today's movie landscape. If a film with charismatic and likable leads like Dave Bautista and Kumail Nanjiani couldn't break out in theaters a couple of years ago (sorry, Stuber), what chance does this Amazon movie stand of making significant waves? I guess since Amazon Prime Video is essentially a glorified afterthought for one of the world's biggest companies, it doesn't really need to make waves. But whatever: I'm glad Amazon is funding stuff like this, and hope it continues to pour money into these types of projects that aren't getting made as often as they used to.