Fresh off "Spider-Man: Brand New Day," Destin Daniel Cretton is in talks to direct a "Hawaii Five-O" movie for Paramount. The studio has already hired Chris Bremner, who wrote "Bad Boys for Life," to handle the script.
According to Deadline, Paramount is assembling the package now. The plan is to give the big-screen treatment to the 1968 CBS procedural, which got its own hit revamp that ran on the same network from 2010 to 2020.
And look at the company it keeps. In the past few weeks alone we've had movie versions announced for "Hawaii Five-O," "Get Smart," "The Italian Job," "The Jetsons," and a Bam Bam movie. Empire City Box Office is right to ask whether the studios woke up in an entirely different decade.
Which brings us to Cretton. The man just delivered the highest-grossing domestic release ever, inflation not accounted for, and this is what he does with that leverage. Not a personal project. Not even a quick pit stop in non-IP territory. Hawaii freaking Five-O.
Cretton is a Sundance alum; his debut, "I Am Not a Hipster," premiered in Park City. His 2013 sophomore indie effort, "Short Term 12," earned strong acclaim, appearing on hundreds of critics' top-10 lists, and ended up introducing a ridiculous amount of new talent to the world, including Brie Larson, Kaitlyn Dever, Rami Malek, and Lakeith Stanfield.
However, after two straight underwhelming originals — "The Glass Castle" (2017) and "Just Mercy" (2019) — Cretton was snatched up by Marvel, as they tend to do with filmmakers in vulnerable career positions, and he's now firmly an in-house filmmaker for the comic-book movie machine.
Before he tackles "Hawaii," Cretton has "Naruto," an adaptation of one of the best-selling manga series of all time, starring Charles Melton.
“Naza,” a politically charged doc, has taken over the Lido. The film, a late addition to the Venice lineup, is drawing raves and looks like a clear Golden Lion contender.