From Johnny to Jonah: Hill to Write ‘21 Jump Street’

Posted by Josh Radde (josh@filmschoolrejects.com) on May 14, 2008

Superbad star Jonah Hill, fresh from being rumored to star in Transformers 2, is taking the pen to the pad and jottin’ down words. Words, that when they are put together reasonably and rationally, should look something like an adaptation of 21 Jump Street for the big-screen. EW reports that Sony is in talks and negotiations with Hill to both write and executive produce the film, but no word as to whether or not he will star.

My guess is that yes, he will star. The show was about cops who went undercover as high school students and Hill (who will be 25 in December) has a very youthful face. What’ll be interesting to see is whether or not Hill can actually write or if he’s again trying to be like his mentor, Seth Rogen, whose been writing professionally since 2001’s “Undeclared” when he was a teen (and believe it or not, is only 5 months older than Hill — he has aged HORRIBLY, he looks like he’s 37).

What I do like about this is that it hasn’t been labeled an “Apatow Production” yet. It seems like the man is getting a lot of credit for other people’s work and the only mention of the man in the EW article is when the writer refers to Hill as a “Judd Apatow acolyte.”

Neal Moritz and Stephen J. Cannell are set to produce for Sony, no director or stars are attached as of yet. However, I do think Johnny Depp could still pull off looking like a 12th-grader.

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