It looks like it’s back-to-school for Channing Tatum, Jonah Hill and Ice Cube, who are in talks to return for a third installment in the 21 Jump Street movie reboot franchise.
Deadline has learned that 24 Jump Street is in the works at Sony Pictures (despite 22 Jump Street being the previous installment), more than a decade later, with Rodney Rothman directing from a script he wrote with Hill and Meghan Malloy.
Phil Lord and Chris Miller are returning to produce after co-directing the first two movies, with producer Neal H. Moritz also back. Tatum and Hill are also producing, along with their respective partners Reid Carolin and Matt Dines.
Variety was first to report the news.
Based on the 1987-1991 Fox series, 21 Jump Street (2012) and 22 Jump Street (2014) follow Schmidt (Hill) and Jenko (Tatum) as they go undercover at a high school to infiltrate a drug ring while working at the titular police program. The sequel saw them assigned to a case on a college campus, with the two movies surpassing $500 million at the global box office.
Back in 2014, when a third installment was in the works, Tatum expressed doubts about returning for a another sequel.
L-R: Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum in ’21 Jump Street’
Scott Garfield/Columbia Pictures/Everett Collection
“I feel like that would be a cop-out,” he told USA Today. “College was the obvious next step for us. We had to go there. I don’t know what the next step is after college. Do we go and take down Enron? Or the government in D.C.? I feel like it’s all redundant.”
Tatum added, “The big running joke of the second movie is this is just going to be bigger … than the first time. I don’t know if that joke works three times, so we’ll see.”
Meanwhile, Tatum said a planned 21 Jump Street crossover with the Men In Black franchise was “still the best script that I’ve ever read.”
