"Ride Along" hit comedy sequel in the works

PanARMENIAN.Net - It was inevitable after the huge success of Ride Along that Universal Pictures executives would be salivating to get the sequel together, Deadline said.

Tim Story will direct Ride Along 2 and Ice Cube and Kevin Hart are closing to reprise their roles as the quick-witted security guard (Hart) who has his eye on his partner’s (Cube’s) sister. The film debuted five weeks ago on the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend to bring in a record opening of $41.5M. It has since grossed more than $120M worldwide as of this weekend. The three-day gross on Ride Along dropped only 9% even as they shed 283 screens with $3,460 per screen.

Will Packer and Cube’s Cube Vision (Ice Cube and Matt Alvarez) are coming back to produce from a script by Phil Hay and Matt Manfredi. A late June/early July start is planned and all are hard at work finalizing the script which is expected to have more action.

Story, who directed Fantastic Four and its sequel Silver Surfer, is finishing up Think Like A Man Too with Hart, Michaely Ealy and Packer which is scheduled to open June 20. Hart and Ealy starred together in this past weekend’s opener About Last Night which grossed roughly $27.8M over the four-day weekend for a solid No. 2 opening. Steve Pink directed.

Hart is also starring with Will Ferrell in Warner Bros’ Get Hard to play the streetwise mentor to investment banker Ferrell who is trying to harden up before he starts serving a sentence in a maximum security prison for a crime he didn’t commit.