Will Smith and Kevin Hart Starring in Remake of 1987 Classic 'Planes, Trains, & Automobiles'

The original starred Steve Martin and John Candy and sees the two leads on a headache-filled road trip across the country ahead of Thanksgiving.

August 17, 2020

Image via Getty/Stefania D'Alessandro
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Planes, Trains, and Automobiles—the classic 1987 Thanksgiving comedy starring Steve Martin and John Candy—is getting a remake.

The reimagining comes from Paramount Pictures and will star Will Smith and Kevin Hart as the leads, per a Deadlinereport filed Monday. Aeysha Carr—whose previous credits include Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Woke, and Everybody Hates Chris—is set to pen the script.

If the 1987 original—penned and directed by the prolific John Hughes—hasn't found its way into your watching roster just yet, here's the basic set-up: Steve Martin played an all-stressed-up executive named Neal Page who ends up on a days-long journey across the country with salesman Del Griffith (played by the late John Candy) ahead of a Thanksgiving neither would soon forget.

News of a fresh take on Planes, Trains, and Automobiles arrives just days after it was announced that a dramatic revival of Smith's star-making Fresh Prince of Bel-Air was in the works. That reboot, as detailed by THR last week, is inspired by a viral clip by Morgan Cooper and is said to be in the middle of being shopped to various potential homes including Netflix and HBO Max.

As for Planes, no release date or additional casting info has been announced just yet. Among the confirmed producers are Hart's Hartbeat Productions and Smith's Westbrook Studios, the latter of which is collaborating with Universal TV on the reimagined Fresh Prince.