EXCLUSIVE: In competition, Amazon Studios is in final talks for the package The Pick Up, with Eddie Murphy eyeing to star and Tim Story attached to direct. John Davis and John Fox will produce through his Davis Entertainment banner. Murphy and Charisse Hewitt-Webster are also in talks to produce through Eddie Murphy Productions, and Story will also be producer.
The package is based on a spec script written by Kevin Burrows and Matt Mider, and the prospect of the elements drove the bidding up to seven-figures for the script, sources said. Three others bid for it. The scribes teamed on the 2018 comedy The Package and created the Conde Nast series Gentlemen Lobsters. Story also producing.
Sources called it a heist comedy in the vein of Bad Boys and Murphy would play a guy who becomes smitten with a woman and finds himself mixed up in a heist attempt. The scribes’ most recent spec Shots! Shots! Shots! was picked up by Universal for Jason Momoa to star and produce with Dan Lin.
Murphy and Davis have made five films together, the most recent of which is Netflix’s Dolemite Is My Name, a Critics Choice Award winner for Best Comedy. Murphy recently starred with Jonah Hill in the Netflix comedy You People.
Story’s next up is The Blackening, which Lionsgate acquired after its Toronto premiere, and which is slotted for release June 16, which is Juneteenth.
Story is repped by UTA and attorney Matt Johnson, Murphy by WME and Ziffrin Brittenham, and Burrows & Mider are WME.
