Universal Pictures clearly knows when they have a good thing going and having already had an early January hit with the Ice Cube-Kevin Hart action-comedy Ride Along, they’re reteaming with that movie’s producer Will Packer (pictured) for another comedy called Girls Trip under his Will Packer Productions banner. If that weren’t enough to guarantee a hit, they’ve also hired director Malcolm Lee to helm the comedy, Lee coming off his own enormous Universal hit The Best Man Holiday, which opened to the tune of $30 million in just 2,024 theaters last November and grossed $70 million domestically.
Packer is having a good year already between the $123 million grossed by Ride Along since opening and the recent $25.6 million opening of the romantic comedy remake About Last Night, also starring Kevin Hart.
Although the details about the premise and plot of Girls Trip are being kept under wraps, plans are for the movie to start filming over the summer, so this project is clearly moving forward quickly and we can expect lots of casting news in the coming weeks. (Packer tends to use many of the same core group of actors in his movies, so we can probably take a wild guess who he might get for this one.)
Both Ride Along and The Best Man Holiday were successful enough that Universal is already developing sequels to both of them with director Tim Story on board for the former and both Hart and Ice Cube back to reprise their roles.
(Photo Credit: C.M. Wiggins/WENN.com)
