CHiPS Is R-Rated and Loaded with Nudity, First Photo Revealed

When Deadpool became the highest grossing R-rated movie in history (at least where the domestic box office is concerned), it opened the floodgates for other like-minded movies to follow suit. Only it’s not the superhero genre that is jumping on this raunchy bandwagon. It’s movies based on old TV shows, as they scramble to repeat what such sex-fueled comedies did in the 80s. We already know that Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson’s Baywatch reboot is going to be one filthy party. Now we have word from Dax Shepard that his big screen version of CHiPs is veering off into adult land as well.

It really should come as no surprise. There was a shortage of R-rated comedies in the first part of the teens, after a big boom in the late 90s and early 2000s that happened in the wake of American Pie and the Farrelly Bros.’ classic Something About Mary. These things always come in waves, and as soon as the first big blockbuster franchise falters and bombs with its R rating the cause to hamper not help, a PG-13 resurgence will then happen, again. Its a vicious cycle, really. And it all depends on each individual movie as time continues to show.

There have and always will be R rated comedies. And 21 Jump Street actually pre-dated Deadpool’s success, so it deserves a lot of credit for this resurgence, too, especially since it’s also based an old TV show. CHiPS was a popular action drama for NBC in the 70s, and it ran for a long time. But it was a family outing, and it did not play too heavily in that adult sandbox. Though Erik Estrada did get a lot of milage out of his status as a sex symbol, especially when it came to those tight highway patrolman uniforms he and co-star Larry Wilcox had to wear.

The big draw in CHiPS was always the motorcycle action, and Dax Shepard, who takes on the Larry Wilcox role of Jon, has promised some of the best motorcycle stunts ever committed to film in any movie. Michael Pena will be playing Ponch. And the duo are taking this material in a much raunchier direction. In fact, there will a lot of nudity in this buddy cop action comedy from Warner Bros. And while there will be plenty of female body parts on display, it sounds like Dax might be showing us more than just his naked backside. Speaking with Entertainment Weekly, Dax assures this about securing an R rating for the movie.

“There’s female nudity. There’s more me nudity than probably any other nudity. And then yeah, there’s a lot of adult material and sexual stuff and naughty language.”

This isn’t a straight up spoof of CHiPS, though. Its a semi-serious take on the material that Dax calls a cross between Bad Boys and Lethal Weapon. It will have real stakes in a real world, with insane situations. This version of CHiPS does not exist in a heightened world, and it’s not satire. About updating the characters for a new age, Shepard goes onto say this.

“Michael Pena‘s character, he plays Ponch, is an FBI agent who’s asked to go undercover within the CHP to help them figure out which cops are dirty. I am a retired ex-games writer who doesn’t know how to do anything but ride a motorcycle. In an attempt to save my marriage I decide I have to get a new job and the only thing I can do is ride a motorcycle. My wife’s dad’s a cop. Maybe this will woo her back. I join without any necessary desire to be a cop, which I think is the fun of the movie. You have one guy who’s an FBI agent, so he has no reverie for the institution of the CHP and then you have another guy who’s two days on the job and doesn’t have any reverie. Two guys who don’t really necessarily care all that much about upholding any kind of CHP standard.”

In the movie, Officer Jon Baker (Dax Shepard) and Officer Frank ‘Ponch’ Poncherello (Michael Pena) find themselves battling Vic Brown (Vincent D’Onofrio), a former LAPD cop kicked off the force and now leading a group of car thieves. This group begins terrorizing the city of Los Angeles. Wilmer Valderrama, who was set to star as Ponch when the movie was originally set up at Warner Bros. appears in a different role alongside Adam Brody, Rosa Salazar, Kristen Bell, Kal Penn, David Koechner and Jane Kaczmarek. The movie opens March 24, 2017. Here’s the first official image of Jon and Ponch riding side-by-side.