A 2010s reboot of โPolice Academyโ was canceled after a tragic real-life incident sparked a national debate about the police use of force.
On the June 17 episode of the podcast โFunny You Ask with Ike Barinholtz,โ the comedian told a story to guest Joel McHale about an awkward pitch meeting he had with his writing partner, David Stassen. The pair was writing on a โPolice Academyโ reboot, produced by and slated to star Barinholtzโs โMad TVโ co-stars Jordan Peele and Keegan-Michael Key, but an ill-fated meeting wasnโt what actually ended up putting the project on hold.
โYears ago, my partner and I got hired to rewrite โPolice Academyโ for New Line Cinema,โ Barinholtz said. โI donโt even know if heโs still alive, we might have to cut this, but the guy who created the original โPolice Academyโ came with the deal. So they said to us, โWe want you guys to write it and make it dirty, rated R, modern.โ Heโll be at some of the meetings, but we donโt have to listen to him. All he wanted to do was give us notes: โBut we would never do that in the first movie. Never, never, never. Oh no, no, no. Mahoney would never say that,โ and he was adamant that we would have the original cast in the movie.
โHe wanted them to have big parts and we were โyada yada,โโ Barinholtz continued. โSo when weโre doing the pitch, my partner was like, โSo we have this scene and thatโs when we see all the original cast. We see Hightower, we see Tackleberry, we haveโฆโ โ heโs just naming all dead people. And I was likeโฆhe didnโt even do research to find out whoโs still alive in the cast. He was not happy. But more importantly, as we were developing the film, Mike Brown got shot and all of a sudden, and we were making the movie for Key and Peele, and people were like, โWeโre not making a cop comedy right now where weโre having these two hilarious Black actors play police officers.โโ
On August 9, 2014, an 18-year-old Black man named Michael Brown was shot and killed by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, which launched more than a week of protests, in which police use of force and militarization came into debate. The officer was investigated but never indicted for any civil rights violations.
The 1984 comedy โPolice Academyโ starred Steve Guttenberg, Kim Cattrall and Bubba Smith, and was a box office hit that launched six sequels and both a live-action and animated series. Attempts at a reboot have started and stalled since 2003.
Barinholtz is currently starring in the popular showbiz satire โThe Studio,โ while Peele is working on his next secret film and Key is filming the โRomy and Micheleโs High School Reunionโ sequel.
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