New Nutty Professor Reboot in the Works

Just about every beloved movie or TV show from childhood has been rebooted lately, but how many franchises can boast that they’ve been rebooted twice? This is about to be case for The Nutty Professor, which is getting reworked yet again for modern audiences. Project X Entertainment, the studio responsible for the current effort to reboot the Scream franchise, is breathing new life into The Nutty Professor, according to a new report from Deadline.

Project X’s James Vanderbilt, William Sherak, and Paul Neinstein are going to be bringing The Nutty Professor back to the screen, making it the third time the property has seen the light of day. Jerry Lewis starred in The Nutty Professor back in 1963 and Eddie Murphy took the lead in the reboot of the film in 1996, as well as the 2000 sequel The Nutty Professor II: The Klumps.

Vanderbilt has long been known for his work as a writer, penning scripts to films like Zodiac, The Amazing Spider-Man, and The Rundown. However, according to the report, Vanderbilt will simply be producing the new Nutty Professor film, not writing its script. At this time, Project X is planning to put its creative team together in-house before taking it to the market. The writer and director have not yet been chosen.

In the original film, Lewis starred as a down-on-his-luck scientist who wanted to improve his social standing, so he drank a potion that temporarily turned him into the handsome and often times obnoxious character Buddy Love. Murphy’s first film followed the same basic formula, but with one major change: Murphy played all of the different members of the main character’s family. Murphy’s portrayal of the Klump family was a big inspiration for the fake Fatties franchise from Tropic Thunder, which starred Jack Black’s fictional actor Jeff Portnoy.

The 1996 reboot managed to haul in over $273 million at the worldwide box office and cost just around $54 million to make. Project X is hoping to replicate the same kind of success with this new iteration.

What do you think about rebooting The Nutty Professor? Let us know in the comments!