When Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill’s “21 Jump Street” came out in 2012, it made a ton of money, but the actors were denied entrance to an exclusive Hollywood club.
But early positive buzz on their sequel “22 Jump Street” indicates the actors’ names are about to be added to the list at the club’s front door.
The elite club’s membership is composed of acting teams behind the top 10 buddy cop comedies of all time. It is not an easy membership to crack, particularly if your name is not Will Smith, Tommy Lee Jones, Jackie Chan, Chris Tucker, Mel Gibson, Danny Glover or Martin Lawrence.
We’re not kidding – only Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy have been able to break into this elite club with their 2013 hit, “The Heat.”
Other than that lone female entry, the near-exclusive boys club is made up of three “Men in Blacks,” three “Rush Hours” and two “Lethal Weapons.” A lone “Bad Boys” rounds out the top 10.
Tatum and Hill’s “21 Jump Street,” which was inspired by an old Johnny Depp TV show, narrowly missed making it into the club. The movie is the 11th most popular buddy cop comedy of all time – close but no cigar.
The sequel, which makes fun of the fact that it is a sequel, is expected to join the exclusive club in a big way. Studio tracking suggests that it could be the biggest comedy of the summer. Sorry, “Bad Boys,” your days are numbered. Turn in your membership card.
In “22 Jump Street,” Tatum and Hill reprise their roles as undercover Los Angeles police officers. This time, they go undercover in a college to smoke out a dangerous drug dealer. In the original, they did the same thing in a high school. Rapper Ice Cube returns as their perpetually screaming and snarling supervisor.
The new film is the latest entry in a movie genre that has been in hot pursuit of box-office gold since 1987, when director Richard Donner found the perfect mix of humor and action in “Lethal Weapon.” The director partnered a psychopathic, suicidal cop (Gibson) and a stable family man (Glover), and the rest was buddy cop history.
Of course, there were buddy cop movies before “Lethal Weapon” – “The French Connection,” to name just one great movie – but the Donner film made humor a significant part of the mix. His film pretty much created a new category of movie comedy.
The genre is so popular with movie audiences that it is not afraid to spoof itself, and the best of that lot includes “The Other Guys” (Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg), “Hot Fuzz” (Simon Pegg and Nick Frost) and Keith Sharon’s “Showtime” (Robert De Niro and Eddie Murphy).
The last buddy cop film to strike a chord with audiences was the hugely successful “Ride Along” this year, whose stars Ice Cube and Kevin Hart already are preparing to return in a sequel. The next buddy cop movie will be “Let’s Be Cops,” which is scheduled to hit theaters in August with Jake Johnson and Damon Wayans Jr. on patrol
Here are the 12 most popular buddy cop movies of all time. Box-office totals are for North America only.
1. “Men in Black” (1997) $250 million – Two guys in black suits and dark glasses. Put a hat on them and you’ve got the Blues Brothers, only with more aliens, cooler weapons and considerably fewer musical numbers. Rick Baker’s alien makeup is amazing.
2. “Rush Hour 2” (2001) $226 million – We find Chris Tucker in China, where Jackie Chan is investigating a crime lord. The action eventually returns to Vegas, baby.
3. “Men in Black II” (2002) $190 million – Agent J (Will Smith) begs Agent K (Tommy Lee Jones) to come out of retirement for no better reason than one more lucrative payday. Other than that, what was the point of this movie?
4. “Men in Black III” (2012) $179 million – Ten years passed since the last sequel, but it was worth the wait. This one had it all – time travel, 3D and Josh Brolin as a young Agent K.
5. “The Heat” (2013) $159 million – Sandra Bullock is the uptight, by-the-book FBI agent and Melissa McCarthy is the slovenly local cop who team up for some laughs.
6. “Lethal Weapon 2” (1989) $144 million – When you run out of Nazis, Russian mobsters and Middle Eastern terrorists, you introduce a terrifying gang of South Africans as villains in this sequel about extremely violent drug smugglers. This is the film in which Riggs (Mel Gibson) and Murtaugh (Danny Glover) are introduced to Leo Getz, played annoyingly spot-on by Joe Pesci. “You think I’m funny?” Why, yes, we do.
7. “Lethal Weapon 3” (1992) – Leo Getz is back in all his annoying glory, and Murtaugh is desperately trying to make it to his retirement without being killed.
8. “Rush Hour” (1998) $141 million – This one introduced us to Chan and Tucker as an odd couple of crime fighters. The former arrives in Los Angeles to assist a Chinese diplomat whose daughter has been kidnapped. Tucker is a cocky local cop who is ordered to baby-sit the visiting cop. Hilarity and cross-cultural humor ensue.
9. “Rush Hour 3” (2007) $140 million – If it worked twice, it’ll work three times. That is the justification for this second sequel. Tucker, who is relegated to traffic duty at this point, joins Chan for a trip to Paris in pursuit of the gangsters behind an assassination. The best part of the movie is Tucker directing traffic.
10. “Bad Boys II” (2003) $138 million – Michael Bay directs again, so there are a lot of mindless action and explosions as our favorite Miami cops not named Crockett and Tubbs pursue a Cuban gangster. Gabrielle Union plays a DEA agent who also happens to be the sister of Marcus (Martin Lawrence). Do you think she likes Mike (Will Smith)?
11. “21 Jump Street” (2012) $138 million – Schmidt (Hill) and Jenko (Tatum) were at opposite ends of the popularity spectrum in high school, but now they are cop buddies who patrol on bike and shoot up a local park. Naturally, they get assigned to go undercover at a school.
12. “Ride Along” (2014) $134 million – Hart is in love, but the father of his fiancée is not convinced he’s worthy of his daughter’s hand in marriage. To test his mettle, the father (Ice Cube) invites his prospective son-in-law to accompany him in his patrol car on a ride-along. A sequel is born.
Contact the writer: 714-796-5051, ext. 1110, or bkoltnow@ocregister.com
