Cruise and Stiller, Hardy Men

“by Natalie Finn

It only took 80 years, but teenage super-sleuths Frank and Joe Hardy have finally grown up. And apparently it was worth the wait, at least for Hollywood, because they grew into Ben Stiller and Tom Cruise.

The box office golden boys have been tapped to play the now-adult brothers in the action comedy The Hardy Men, a reworking of the classic detective series The Hardy Boys, which kicked off in 1927 with The Tower Treasure.

Per Variety, The Hardy Men will feature the siblings, once inseparable but now estranged, reuniting to solve one last case. No word on whether they’ll still go by Frank and Joe or if the screenplay will call for more modern monikers.

Cruise and Stiller have reportedly been exchanging plot ideas with Night at the Museum director Shawn Levy, who will helm the project for 20th Century Fox.

Meanwhile, the longtime pals—ever since Stiller nailed his first Cruise impression during his formative years on The Ben Stiller Show—are also contemplating teaming up for the making-of-a-movie-within-a-movie comedy Tropic Thunder, which Stiller will direct for DreamWorks. (Interestingly, Paramount would distribute the film, placing Cruise back in the industry arena with best bud Sumner Redstone.)

The pair also teamed up in 2000 for the short-form spoof Mission: Improbable, in which Cruise played himself and Stiller played a stuntman subbing for the heartthrob on the set of Mission: Impossible 2.

Fox is aiming to start production on The Hardy Men in 2008.

Although this will be the Hardys’ first trip to the multiplex, the boys are no strangers to the small screen.

Before the era of Britney, Justin and Christina, Tim Considine and Tommy Kirk portrayed the Hardy brothers on the iconic Mickey Mouse Club from 1956-57. Then, Parker Stevenson and Shaun Cassidy wielded the flashlights in the ABC primetime series The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries, costarring Pamela Sue Martin as the titian-haired heroine, which ran from 1977-79.

There was also a Hardy Boys Saturday-morning cartoon that premiered in 1969 and a 13-episode syndicated series that aired in Canada in 1995.

But first thing’s first. Stiller has gone to bat again for the Farrelly brothers in The Seven Day Itch, due in theaters Oct. 5, while Cruise is set to star in the Robert Redford-directed Lions for Lambs, the first film in the pipeline for Cruise and production partner Paula Wagner’s revamped United Artists nameplate. Redford will also costar in the intersecting-lives drama, along with Meryl Streep and Derek Luke.”

Source: E! Online. Thanks Christine!

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