The “Cop Out” red-band trailer broke out today, and now it’s looking more like a Kevin Smith movie.
That ridiculous PG version Warner Bros. ejected first just about torpedoed everyone’s interest in sitting through the film. When it comes to Kevin Smith, no one wants to be invited to a whorehouse with a promise of seeing good card tricks, you know? Give us the money shots or we’ll just go rent “Clerks” again.
Anyway, here are Tracy Morgan, Bruce Willis and Seann William Scott acting like regular ol’ profane action-movie grown-ups. Some of it’s even funny.
One observation: The profanity zeitgeist seems to have shifted from the cringy thrill of watching old ladies like Betty White throw out f-bombs to young kids spewing curse words like little machine guns on a sugar high. “Role Models” got the movement going, and this year’s “Kick-Ass” has teed up a few choice raunch-zingers viewable in the latest international red-band trailer (also below – wait around for the last line).
Well, you knew it was going to get a title change. “A Couple of Dicks,” while a bullseye for the typical Kevin Smith crowd, wasn’t going to draw anyone else to his attempt to break out of the Kevin Smith box.
So here we have “Cop Out,” and its newly released trailer:
While I like that Warner Bros. is playing off its own storied cop/crime film legacy, this project hits a little too generic in contrast (starting with the meaningless punny title). Like Chris Tucker, a little Tracy Morgan goes a long, long way. And though this is Bruce Willis in his element — and he had mad chemistry with Sam Jackson in the third “Die Hard” — he looks kind of neutered here.
And in a strange new trend, this trailer doesn’t say a thing about the plot. I’m the first to gripe when a trailer unspools the whole freakin’ storyline, but can we get some hint of what the challenge or thematic throughline is for these characters you want us to come spend time with? The fact that you think they’re funny together (of which there isn’t much evidence here) is not nearly enough.
Sadly, this new title will be its own tempting bullseye for those Smith fans who will see this film as just that.
When we first saw this poster for “Surrogates,” Bruce Willis’ what-if-robots-replaced-humans futuro retread, we felt a little dirty, then we felt a little titillated, then we felt a little dirty for feeling titillated.
Action stars may lose their currency as they move into their 50s. But Bruce Willis keeps on raking in the offers.
The star, who turned 54 last month, has been in discussions to shoot and fight his way through three action pics — a thriller for NuImage/Millenium titled “Inventory,” the CIA tale “Red” for Summit and the mob biopic “Scarpa” for Morgan Creek.
In “Inventory,” Willis, who is in negotiations for the role, would play a detective on the trail of a murderer.
In “Red,” Willis would portray a former black-ops agent who has gone into retirement but is forced back into action when a high-tech assassin comes a-callin’ to threaten him and his girlfriend. Lorenzo di Bonaventura and Mark Vahradian are producing, and Erich and Jon Hoeber are writing the screenplay, which is based on the WildStorm/DC Comic. (DC’s Gregory Noveck is exec producing.)
The “Twilight” studio has made an offer on “Red,” and Willis’ camp has counteroffered, though those with knowledge of the talks say negotiations could yet break off without the sides reaching a deal. Producers are now out to directors, with Richard Donner said to be among the names on the shortlist. Donner and Willis, of course, collaborated on the 2006 cop drama “16 Blocks.”
The CAA-repped Willis has also been weighing an offer from Morgan Creek to play the title character in “Scarpa,” a mob biopic directed by "Tears of the Sun" helmer Antoine Fuqua about Greg Scarpa, an FBI informant who worked deeply undercover in New York’s Columbo family, though the odds are growing that Willis won't do that pic.
After making his name as an action star through most of the 1990s with the “Die Hard” movies and pics like “Armageddon” and “Mercury Rising,” Willis briefly took on less action-oriented parts in such films as “The Sixth Sense,” “The Story of Us” and “The Kid” before returning to his trademark roles. He revived his John McClane character in “Live Free or Die Hard” in 2007.
Willis is attached to or is starring in a host of other action movies — the buddy action-comedy tentatively titled “A Couple of Dicks” at Warners, likely to be his next movie, and Lionsgate’s adaptation of the video game title “Kane & Lynch.” He next toplines the Touchstone sci-fi actioner “Surrogates.”
Even brand-name actors have had trouble keeping action roles going once they hit the midcentury mark. But a select group of older icons like Harrison Ford and Sylvester Stallone have found multiple jobs in action movies even into their 50s and even their 60s. Looks like Willis will be moonlighting that way too.
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