Fox Gives Script Commitment to Women-Led The Nice Guys Spinoff Series, The Nice Girls

The Nice Guys was a critical darling of 2016, a neo-noir comedy following mismatched Ryan Gosling and Russell Crowe as they tried to crack a murder case.

Gosling’s character, Holland March, has a daughter in that movie played by Angourie Rice, and we have a feeling that her character’s success played a role in this news: Fox has given a script commitment (with penalty) to The Nice Girls, a television spinoff of the original movie. Deadline reports that the show will be produced by Joel Silver (the same producer as the original) and written by Michael Diliberti. The phrase “with penalty” means that there’s an added clause: if Fox doesn’t produce the pilot, they have to pay an additional hefty fee to the writers/producersm, meaning this show is more likely to get made.

This series actually makes some sense based on the original film—The Nice Guys has a small but recurring theme of looking towards the future, specifically with the intent of passing the reins from guys like Gosling and Crowe’s characters to girls like Angourie Rice’s. While no plot details have been released yet, we would expect that dynamic to play some role in shaping the story, rather than the show just swapping out Gosling and Crowe for two female actors. Then again, they might do exactly that, and trap these characters into a dull, played-out crime procedural. Who can know?

Consider us cautiously optimistic for this one, although we’ve been burned before, like on the last television adaptation of a Shane Black film, Lethal Weapon. Read our The Nice Guys review here.