Producer Joel Silver is developing a gender-swapped TV reboot of his 2016 buddy-action-comedy The Nice Guys. Shane Black directed the original movie, which starred Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling as a pair of private eyes investigating a missing girl and death of a pornographic star.

Despite very strong reviews, The Nice Guys was not a huge box office success, tallying $57 million domestically on a reported budget of $50 million. Set in the 1970s, the movie was very much a throwback to old-school action films like Lethal Weapon and the TV series Starsky & Hutch (which itself ultimately became a movie, and is now reportedly becoming a TV series again).

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The Nice Guys is now being brought back by producer Joel Silver for Fox as a female-led action comedy, Variety reports. The TV reboot would be a contemporary take on the movie's private eye situations. Michael Diliberti (30 Minutes or Less) is set to write and executive produce. Silver and his president of television Rodney Ferrell will also executive produce, along with Ken Kao. Lionsgate, 20th Century Fox Television and Silver Pictures Television are producing.

The Nice Guys

Silver has already been successful in bringing a rebooted version of his classic '80s/'90s buddy-cop action franchise Lethal Weapon to FOX. Starring Clayne Crawford and Damon Wayans as updated versions of Mel Gibson and Danny Glover's original film characters, Lethal Weapon has drawn solid ratings and recently kicked off its second season.

The decision to gender-swap the lead roles for the Nice Guys TV reboot is an interesting one. Having a pair of women as the leads does give the series a hook that it wouldn't have if it were just a pair of guys. Updating the series to the present day helps too, as dealing in a period setting is always expensive. The idea of a pair of female private eyes in the 1970s might not be very believable, but the idea is not a stretch in a contemporary setting.

The Nice Guys may not have been as successful as Joel Silver and Shane Black hoped when they released the movie in 2016, but maybe the idea can catch on as a female-led TV series. Buddy-cop shows have as long a history on TV as they do in movies, and bringing a fresh, female perspective to the genre might be just the thing to enliven it and make it popular with today's audiences. The casting process should be interesting to watch.

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We'll bring you more details on The Nice Guys TV reboot as they become available.

Source: Variety