Amazon’s Prime Video has picked up the worldwide rights to Peter Farrelly’s upcoming comedy Ricky Stanicky ahead of a worldwide streaming release.
The Dumb and Dumber director’s return to comedy will star Jermaine Fowler, Zac Efron and John Cena and has started production in Melbourne, Australia. Rick Stanicky portrays three friends inventing a character to get out of tricky situations, but they have to hire a washed-up actor to portray their fictional friend when their partners become suspicious and all with comedic consequences.
Producers on the pic include Paul Currie of Footloose Productions, Thorsten Schumacher of Rocket Science and John Jacobs of Smart Entertainment. The script is written by Farrelly, Brian Jarvis and Jim Freeman and is based on an original spec script by Jeff Bushnell and Steve Oedekerk.
Fowler most recently starred in Hulu’s comedy The Drop, while Efron starred opposite Russell Crowe in Apple TV+’s The Greatest Beer Run Ever that Farrelly directed. Cena recently starred in Peacemaker for HBO Max.
Academy Award-winner Farrelly has other comedy credits that include Shallow Hal, Kingpin, Hall Pass, and There’s Something About Mary. He showed his dramatic directing chops with the Oscar best picture winner Green Book, which starred Mahershala Ali and Viggo Mortensen as a Black concert pianist and his Italian-American driver, respectively.
“With Peter’s expertise and what are sure-to-be hilarious performances from our stellar cast led by Zac Efron, John Cena, and Jermaine Fowler, our Prime Video viewers around the world are in store for a bit of mischief and a lot of laughs,” Jennifer Salke, head of Amazon and MGM Studios, said in a statement.
“I’m very grateful to Amazon, as well as Paul Currie, Thorsten Schumacher, and John Jacobs, for finally bringing Ricky Stanicky to life,” Farrelly added in his own statement.
Prime Video plans to stream Rick Stanicky in over 240 countries and territories worldwide as it is released. CAA Media Finance and Rocket Science brokered the deal with Prime Video for the filmmakers.
