Last August, Collider reported that Kevin Hart was set to produce and star in a superhero comedy titled Night Wolf for STX Entertainment, but the great mystery was who would direct. It turns out, the mystery wasn't too tough to solve, as Hart's frequent collaborator Tim Story is in negotiations to direct from a script by Detective Pikachu scribes Dan Hernandez and Benji Samit.
Story is a solid if unexciting choice for this studio movie, but he and Hart share a long history and likely have a strong shorthand by now, which can be helpful on a comedy since they're all about timing and spontaneity. This one, which sounds like Meet the Parents if Robert De Niro was secretly Superman, will find Hart meeting his future father-in-law for the first time, only to discover he is secretly the superhero known as the Night Wolf.
Now listen, there are three people you make this movie with, presuming that the father-in-law is black -- which may not even be the case, since Tina Fey could end up starring opposite Hart for all I know -- and the most obvious one is Samuel L. Jackson. Not only is he a bad (in a good way) motherfucker, he's also funny as hell, plus, he just worked with Story on the latest Shaft movie. The second is Eddie Murphy, who would be capital-G Great paired with Hart, and would likely deliver the most laughs per minute. The third, however, is the most De Niro-est choice of them all, and that would be Denzel Washington. Can you imagine if Kevin Hart convincing Denzel to do this, and STX writing that big-ass check? That is the kind of star power that would turn this into a Meet the Parents-level hit around the world.
Regardless of who plays his father-in-law, Hart will produce via his HartBeat Productions, while Story will produce via his The Story Company. Sharla Sumpter Bridgett will serve as an executive producer on the project, which sure has STX brass excited.
“Tim was our first choice for this project,” STX's Adam Fogelson told Deadline, which broke the news. “His skill with both comedy and action, along with his long history of working with Kevin on both Ride Along films, both Think Like a Man films, and many of Kevin’s comedy standup event films, made him uniquely suited for this material. He came in with a great take and STX and HartBeat couldn’t be more excited to get started.”
Of course, Hart and Story will have to wait for restrictions to lift before Hollywood can safely resume production, so it may be a while before Night Wolf makes audiences howl with laughter, pardon the pun. As Fogelson notes, Story has directed Hart in four feature films and three concert movies, but did he know that Story's breakout movie was 2002's Barbershop, and Hart appeared in several episodes of a Showtime series that was also called Barbershop that was completely unrelated to the movie? I'm willing to bet he did not!
Story may be the second Fantastic Four director in the news this week following Polygon's fantastic Josh Trank profile, but he recently became the first person to segue from a Shaft movie to a Tom and Jerry movie, which if nothing else, speaks to his range as a storyteller. It's a shame that, like Hart's own 2015 comedy Get Hard, Shaft had to resort to being as wildly homophobic as they were to get laughs, but leaving last year's disappointing sequel aside, seven of Story's nine narrative features have opened atop the box office, so he's a safe bet for studios and talent. For Collider's scoop about Chloe Grace Moretz starring in the Tom and Jerry movie, click here.