Anne Hathaway and Rebel Wilson are con artists in the trailer for The Hustle - a gender-swapped remake of the 1988 comedy Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. The Hustle is far from the only recent film to reimagine an older movie by changing its leads' gender. Just last week, in fact, Taraji P. Henson starred in What Men Want, a new take on Nancy Meyers' 2000 comedy, What Women Want. Before then, of course, there was 2016's Ghostbusters reboot and last year's Ocean's Eight: a movie that takes place in the Ocean's universe, but centers on Danny Ocean's sister, Debbie Ocean, instead.
For The Hustle, Hathaway and Wilson play gender-bent versions of the con men portrayed by Steve Martin and Michael Caine in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. The movie follows the two women as they compete to swindle a 20-something tech billionaire (Alex Sharp) out of his fortune, after reaching an agreement that whoever loses have to leave town for good. With Wilson's rom-comedy parody Isn't It Romantic opening in theaters this week, MGM has decided to use the occasion to kick off marketing for The Hustle, ahead of its release this May.
Related: Teen Spirit Trailer: Listen to Elle Fanning Perform 'Lights'
The official trailer for The Hustle is now online, after Hathaway and Wilson spent yesterday teasing its arrival through their social media accounts. You can check it out in the space below.
Based on the trailer, Hathaway and Wilson's characters start off as friends in The Hustle, with the former (who plays a high-class scammer) taking the latter under her wing. The pair very much appear to be channeling Martin and Caine in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels here, with Hathaway playing the straight woman to Wilson's far less sophisticated and slapstick-heavy character. Interestingly, the original Dirty Rotten Scoundrels was itself a loose re-working of the 1964 film Bedtime Story, starring Marlon Brando and David Niven. In that respect, The Hustle putting a gender-flipped spin on the same premise is mostly just par for the course for this familiar tale of con artists-turned frenemies.
The Hustle was written by Jac Schaeffer, who's since been recruited to write Marvel's Black Widow movie and the upcoming Vision and the Scarlet Witch TV series for Disney Plus. That bodes well for her efforts on this film, which is only her second feature as a writer after the 2009 comedy TIMER (which she also directed). Similarly, The Hustle director Chris Addison has already shown a knack for this kind of lampoonist women-driven comedy with his efforts as a creative on HBO's political satire Veep. The Hustle is currently slated to open against Detective Pikachu in theaters, but it may yet enjoy success as counter-programming to the live-action Pokémon adventure, for these reasons.
MORE: 2019 Spring & Winter Movie Preview - The 15 Films to See
Source: MGM
