While comedy star Adam Devine has various projects he’s kept busy with, the hope was always to return to the Workaholics franchise that helped make him a name. As one last ride was supposed to be produced as a streaming-exclusive movie, this spring’s cancellation put that possibility on ice. Hope was still in the air though, as Devine and his co-stars Blake Anderson and Anders holm were hoping to sell the project to another streamer.
That prospect doesn’t sound very likely at the moment thanks to an update that The Out-Laws delivered to me personally, during an interview to promote the film. Taking place before the recent SAG-AFTRA strike, both Adam Devine and Nina Dobrev spoke to me about their work on the action rom-com that’s new on Netflix this month.
Naturally, talk turned to this intended conclusion to the Comedy Central sitcom, which ran for seven seasons between 2011 and 2017. The official update that Devine shared with CinemaBlend places the Workaholics movie in this particularly tough spot:
It’s hard. It’s hard, dude. They have the rights to it, they don’t want to sell it. Because essentially, if it goes to Netflix or wherever and it’s a huge hit, then they look like bozos. You know, no one wants to look like bozos.
Up until its cancellation, the Workaholics movie was supposed to shoot this past spring. However, when Devine shared the renewal of his Pitch Perfect spinoff series, it came with the news that Paramount+ had pulled the plug on the movie. With just weeks to go before production was supposed to begin, the actor had to deliver news that he described as “the loosest butthole.”
Adam Devine’s news also revealed a rather interesting paradox. On one hand, his announcement of the movie’s cancellation cited a lack of fitting into the platform’s “new “global” strategy” caused the axe to swing. But on the other hand, as seen in the remarks made above by The Out-Laws star, shopping Workaholics’ grand finale is being blocked by Paramount not wanting to sell the rights to the project to anyone who might be remotely interested.
It’s the worst catch-22 scenario one can think of, especially because Adam Devine's 2016 Netflix movie Game Over, Man! was inspired by a Workaholics episode. With his connection to the studio still pretty strong, especially thanks to The Out-Laws, you'd think that'd be a natural home for this forsaken pitch.
However, the silver lining for the moment is that actor and Out-Laws co-star Nina Dobrev, who actually appeared on the show because of her desire to work on friend Adam Devine’s sitcom, had her own thoughts on the matter. Sharing with CinemaBlend why she things this project might be in a holding pattern, Dobrev and Devine outlined a cool pitch that could keep this flick alive:
"Nina Dobrev: Maybe they’re waiting for you guys to get a little older, so that it’s even funnier that you’re still the same. You’re like grey…
Adam Devine: …full grey. Blake has lost all of his hair, I’m in an electric wheelchair."
Should Adam Devine get his wish, he’ll get to “bring the weird one last time” with co-stars/friends Blake Anderson and Anders Holm. That is, if the decision-makers at Paramount+ decide to either reverse the cancellation of the Workaholics movie, or if they allow another interested party to produce it. By the time that decision is made, it just might be a good idea to make a version of the project where our trio of slackers are still up to their old tricks, despite the ravages of time.
Though it's cancelled for now, it sounds like the Workaholics crew are still happy to step up, if and when the time comes. While the world waits for what comes next, the entire run of the series that started it all can currently be streamed with a Paramount+ subscription. As for The Out-Laws, Adam Devine and Nina Dobrev’s runaway romance can only be streamed on Netflix.
