Paramount Is Developing a Hawaii Five-O Movie With Destin Daniel Cretton

Destin Daniel Cretton is developing a feature film based on Hawaii Five-O at Paramount Pictures, with plans to direct. Deadline first reported the project, which has Chris Bremner (Bad Boys for Life) writing the screenplay with Noah Oppenheim (Jackie).

The film is in early development. Paramount has not commented, and no cast, production start, or release date has been set.

Entertainment 360’s Guymon Casady put the package together with the estate of Leonard Freeman, who created the original series, and Casady is producing. Because both the original show and its 2010 remake aired on CBS, Paramount got the first shot at the project. Oppenheim served as president of NBC News before returning to screenwriting, and Bremner’s credits also include Bad Boys: Ride or Die.

A director gestures while speaking to a person in a Spider-Man costume on a film set.

Cretton comes to the project off Spider-Man: Brand New Day, which has grossed $2.4 billion worldwide since opening July 31. That makes it the third highest-grossing film ever, behind Avatar and Avengers: Endgame, and its domestic total has passed Endgame for second place on the all-time North American chart.

Hawaii is home turf for the director, who grew up on Maui. His earlier films include Short Term 12, The Glass Castle, Just Mercy, and Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.

Hawaii Five-O will have to wait its turn on his schedule. Cretton’s next film is Lionsgate’s live-action Naruto, which is expected to start filming in the first half of 2027, with Charles Melton in talks to play Kakashi. He is also expected to return for a fifth Tom Holland Spider-Man film, though Sony and Marvel have not announced one, and Shang-Chi 2 remains in development at Marvel.

Four men in business suits standing outdoors with palm trees in the background.

Leonard Freeman’s Hawaii Five-O premiered on CBS in 1968 and ran 12 seasons until 1980. Jack Lord starred as Steve McGarrett, the head of a Hawaii state police task force, and the show’s Morton Stevens theme and McGarrett’s “Book ’em, Danno” line became pop culture fixtures. When it ended, it was the longest-running police drama in American television history.

CBS revived the property in 2010 as Hawaii Five-0, spelled with a zero, starring Alex O’Loughlin as McGarrett and Scott Caan as Danny “Danno” Williams alongside Daniel Dae Kim and Grace Park. That version ran 10 seasons and 240 episodes through 2020 and shared a universe with CBS’s MacGyver and Magnum P.I. reboots.

This is not the first try at a Hawaii Five-O movie. In 1996, producer George Litto partnered with the Freeman estate on a film, and CBS sued the estate, claiming the network held the rights. In 1999, after 21 months of arbitration, the Writers Guild won Freeman’s widow Rose and Litto the separated rights to the series, film rights included. The movie still never reached production, and the franchise returned on television instead.