Let's Be Cops Sequel Update: Director Reveals Plans 11 Years Later

As the director makes his way back to the action genre, Luke Greenfield has an exciting update about the future of Let’s Be Cops. The 2014 film marked Greenfield’s return to original storytelling after helming the adaptation of Something Borrowed, being inspired by his own experience impersonating police for a hidden-camera comedy and centering on two friends down on their luck who begin taking their initial fun of pretending to be LAPD officers a little too seriously.

Led by New Girl vets Jake Johnson and Damon Wayans Jr., Let’s Be Cops overcame lackluster critical reviews to become a box office smash, grossing nearly $140 million against its $17 million production budget. The years since have seen Johnson and Wayans Jr. reunite for a handful of things, including Netflix’s Hoops and a buddy comedy they were writing together. However, even while the original Let’s Be Cops ended with Johnson’s character becoming an official police officer, the movie never got a proper follow-up.

In a recent interview with ScreenRant‘s Grant Hermanns to discuss his new action-comedy Playdate, Luke Greenfield opened up about why Let’s Be Cops 2 never happened. The writer/director began by describing the movie as being “dear to me“, given it was “based on [the] true story“ of his hidden-camera comedy impersonation of police:

I have a f—ed-up sense of humor. I was doing a hidden camera show, and I got arrested. And when I got arrested, I had to do community service, which then made me create Role Models. So both movies are based on real-life experiences.

He then went on to reveal that there “was a lot of talk in the beginning about a sequel” to Let’s Be Cops, particularly as the movie became a box office success. However, as he shared, these talks eventually started to wane amidst the political unrest in Ferguson, Missouri in the wake of the fatal shooting of Michael Brown by FPD officer Darren Wilson. “There was a lot of negative stuff out there,” Greenfield recalled.

Despite the initial hurdles, though, Greenfield shared that “I want to reboot that movie very badly“, sharing that there was “so much I didn’t get into” Let’s Be Cops. Recalling having done the impersonation in LA and New York, and therefore having “been in real danger“, the writer/director affirmed big plans for more:

I’m a complete idiot, but if you love the movie, get excited, because it’s either going to be a reboot, or I have so much material, it might actually be a kick-a– TV series.

Let’s Be Cops is certainly not the first film to find its release impacted in some capacity by real-world events. The ensemble sci-fi comedy The Watch infamously had its title changed from Neighborhood Watch after the tragic killing of Trayvon Martin by neighorhood watch member George Zimmerman, while the Ryan Gosling-led Gangster Squad had to scrap and retool an entire sequence involving a theater shootout after a similar occurrence in Aurora, Colorado.

Where those movies found themselves underperforming, or bombing entirely, at the box office, Let’s Be Cops was actually able to overcome the combined hurdles of negative reviews and the Ferguson unrest to become a financial success. This kind of success would be the best boon for a studio to consider a sequel, especially Disney, now that they own the rights to Greenfield’s film after their acquisition of 20th Century Fox.

Another potential benefit for Greenfield’s chances to bring Let’s Be Cops back for more is that the police comedy genre is no longer as prominent as it once was. With many storytellers taking a dramatic approach to depicting law enforcement, in an effort to tap into the social injustices that resulted in Martin, Brown and numerous others’ deaths, the few comedic standouts of the bunch in recent years have been the latest Bad Boys and Beverly Hills Cop sequels, which did still become hits, as plans for more of each are in development.

If Greenfield and Disney/Fox can take advantage of this dearth of humorous portrayals of law enforcement, the next Let’s Be Cops could be even bigger than the first, be it a sequel, reboot or TV show. Additionally, with the writer/director clearly acknowledging the impact real-world events have on fictional stories, he could evolve his formula from the first film to mix its goofy comedic premise with impactful social commentary.