FLETCH Reboot Lives - Again

By Neil Upton / June 25, 2011

Many people have tried over the past 15 years to get the Fletch franchise twitching back to life - the last attempt we reported on back in the early days of OWF and had Joshua Jackson attached to lead in a film directed by Steve Pink (Hot Tub Time Machine). To date, all have failed. THR say Warner Bros. are determined to do something with the property, just like their recently announced reboot of another long dormant series Lethal Weapon. It's being reported that the studio have bought the rights to Gregory McDonald's (who died three years ago) series of 11 novels from which Chevy Chase's two 80's comedy vehicles Fletch and Fletch Lives were derived. The Fletch movies follow the exploits of a divorced investigative journalist snooping around where he isn't wanted whilst getting hell from the ex wives. Shameless self promoter and some time director Kevin Smith tried for a very long time to get one of the later books in the series 'Fletch Won' into production with Chevy Chase involved as well as Jason Lee as a younger Fletch, however the studio wanted someone more bankable then the future My Name is Earl star at the time, so he toyed with the idea of casting Zach Braff before eventually bailing on the project.

However Braff name was still in the hat when Scrubs creator Bill Lawrence was hired to write a new draft. He also left the project and was replaced in 2007 by Steve Pink, director of Hot Tub Time Machine, which led us to Joshua Jackson and then nothing for the last three years. No word is out on who's the next in line to fill Chevy boots but smart young comedic actors, start lining up now as this is going to be a very sought after role. And yes, we imagine Chevy Chase will find a cameo or supporting role in there, somewhere.