WTF: Shane Black’s ‘The Nice Guys’ Getting Female-Driven TV Reboot ‘The Nice Girls’
By Hoai-Tran Bui/Sept. 29, 2017 10:00 am EST
Joel Silver is the figure behind this TV reboot. He and Rodney Ferrell, from his studio Silver Pictures Television, are executive producing the series, which is helming the project as part of a first-look deal at Lionsgate TV.
This is not the first time a feature film has been adapted into a primetime procedural series, with movies like Limitless, Frequency, Taken, Training Day, Lethal Weapon, Rush Hour, and Minority Report, making the leap from the big to small screen. Indeed many of these reboots have had modern makeovers, receiving leads of color or female leads, such as Minority Report or Frequency.
It’s just the premise of The Nice Guys seems far too insular — and to be honest, convoluted — to make for an episodic TV show. As much as I enjoyed the profanity and violence-laced noirish romp, the movie was steeped in casual misogyny that the protagonists engaged in. And when it makes the transition to TV, there’s no doubt it will be a wholly different story in a “contemporary” setting. Why not just create a new story centered on female leads? Other than the catchy name, it doesn’t seem worth the effort to adapt.
Here’s the synopsis for the original The Nice Guys:
While I’m all for more female-led TV shows, this news only elicits a somewhat perplexed response from me. The film was a riotous black comedy that tapped into the latent comedic potential of its charismatic stars but seems an odd choice for a TV reboot. Maybe my mind will be changed whenever its first trailers roll around.
Holland March (Ryan Gosling) is a down-on-his-luck private eye in 1977 Los Angeles. Jackson Healy (Russell Crowe) is a hired enforcer who hurts people for a living. Fate turns them into unlikely partners after a young woman named Amelia (Margaret Qualley) mysteriously disappears. Healy and March soon learn the hard way that some dangerous people are also looking for Amelia. Their investigation takes them to dark places as anyone else who gets involved in the case seems to wind up dead.
What do you think of The Nice Girls?
