The best scene in Spike Lee's 25th Hour comes towards the end of the film when Edward Norton, Barry Pepper and Philip Seymour Hoffman are walking in the park counting down the minutes until Norton has to go to prison. Admitting his fear of being raped in jail, Norton asks his friends if they will beat the tar out of him, hoping that the other prisoners won't touch him if he's too ugly. After some refusal and some goading, finally Pepper begins to rain blows upon Norton, his eyes pouring tears as he helps turn his best friend's face to mush. It's a rough, emotionally raw scene that's expertly acted and directed - and now Will Ferrell and Kevin Hart are going to take that same premise and turn it into a comedy.
Deadline reports that Warner Bros. is now working to acquire a new project called Get Hard, which is being looked at as a starring vehicle for the aforementioned comedians. The script will be written by Ian Roberts and Jay Martel, best known for being the showrunners on Comedy Central's Key & Peele, the story is about an rich investment banker (Ferrell) who finds himself framed for a crime, convicted, and on his way to a maximum state prison. In the 30 days before he has to go, he has "the streetwise guy who normally washes his car" (Hart) teach him how he can survive incarceration.
Ferrell, who is currently working on the upcoming Lego movie and Anchorman: The Legend Continues, will next be seen in Shawn Levy's The Internship, which arrives in theaters June 7, 2013. Hart, meanwhile, has the About Last Night remake, Nick Cannon's School Dance, and Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg's The End of the World out next year and is currently filming Ride Along with Ice Cube.
