John Cena and Pakistani-American Kumail Nanjiani to star in a buddy cop comedy

KARACHI: While it may still be a far cry to see the modern generation’s most widely known star John Cena perform in Pakistan, we could see him doing wrestling moves alongside his Pakistani tag team partner. According to Deadline, Cena is set to be a part of a buddy cop comedy film, alongside Pakistani-American comedian Kumail Nanjiani.

Nanjiani has been a comic act in the US for years now, but has risen to great popularity in recent years, thanks to Silicon Valley and his debut hit film The Big Sick. Meanwhile, Cena, apart from winning WWE championships left and right, has been following the suite of fellow wrestler Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson and being a part of many a mainstream Hollywood projects, including Train Wreck alongside Amy Schumer and even hosted Saturday Night Live.

Not many details of the untitled project are known yet except that Zombieland director Ruben Fleischer will helm the Universal Pictures production, written by Murray Miller.

While both Nanjiani and Cena have had considerable success in the recent past, one may still question the latter’s ability to lead a film. Nanjiani proves he is more than capable of doing so with The Big Sick, which has proved to be one of the most acclaimed films of this year.



 

The unlikely pairing of the 16-time WWE champion and Nanjiani could be interesting, to say the least. With Cena’s impeccable promo skills being the proof of his great comic timing, and Nanjiani off-beat humour, the two buddy cops might churn out laugh-out-loud banter when they chase criminals. How the director chooses to explore and find the right dynamics between this odd duo remains to be seen, however, the unlikeliest allies are the best ones so it will definitely be interesting to see how the two stars play off each other.

I can already imagine Cena countering Nanjiani’s off-beat one-liner with one of his wrestling catchphrases, or The Big Sick star making the WWE superstar eat biryani or indulge in a “very Pakistani” way of approaching duty and justice. While all that remains in the air yet, it’s impossible not to be excited for this salt-and-pepper pairing.