The Safdies’ ‘48 Hrs’ Script Was Too “Original” for Paramount: “This Isn’t A Remake”

This project seems to have gotten lost in the ether. Back in 2017, Josh and Benny Safdie had been tasked by Paramount to reboot “48 Hrs,” with Jerrod Carmichael eyed to star. The brothers were coming off the acclaim of “Good Time,” but the project is dead—and, no surprise, the reason is that the script they submitted didn’t read like a remake.

In a recent conversation for Deadline’s Crew Call podcast, filmmaker Josh Safdie and his writing partner Ronnie Bronstein—the duo behind Good Time and Uncut Gems—opened up about what ultimately happened to their planned remake of 48 Hrs.

The project, which was being developed at Paramount Pictures, was inspired by Walter Hill’s 1982 action‑comedy that paired Nick Nolte and Eddie Murphy. While the original is often cited as one of the earliest examples of the ’80s “buddy” formula, Safdie admits his intention was not to replicate that film:

Why I’m giving you the kind of more emotional, intellectual response is to try to shine a light as to how hard it is. I think it’s much easier to, as Ronnie was saying earlier, it’d be great if I could, we did that, we wrote a remake of ’48 Hrs.’ for Paramount, and they read it, and they were like, ‘This isn’t a remake, what is this? This is an original film.’ We’re like, ‘Sorry, we tried.’

I wish this could have happened—the Safdies bringing their visceral, gutter‑poetry style to the buddy cop genre might have been spectacular. Alas, an “original” approach wasn’t exactly what Paramount was expecting from the duo.

Then again, if Paramount had greenlit “48 Hrs.” back then, we might not have gotten “Uncut Gems,” or at least not as early as we did.

Josh and Benny eventually parted ways and have since pursued solo projects—Benny with “The Smashing Machine,” and more triumphantly, Josh with “Marty Supreme.”

For the time being, when asked about their next project, Safdie and Bronstein admit there’s “nothing in the can” and “the tank is completely drained,” but one can hope their baseball card collection movie, starring Adam Sandler and derailed by the 2023 strikes, somehow comes back into the equation in the foreseeable future.