Stu (Kumail Nanjiani) is a chatty, mild-mannered, risk-averse Millennial who works in a sporting goods store while moonlighting as an Uber driver trying to make enough money to finance a spin gym business to get with the girl of his dreams — a plan that’s about as likely to work as it sounds. He will do anything to save his five-star driver’s rating.
Vic Manning (Dave Bautista) is a middle aged, old school, alpha detective. He’s divorced from his wife, married to his job, and neglectful of his parental duties to his grownup artist daughter, Nicole. Years of using his hulking body as a battering ram have taken its toll, but Vic still pushes it to the limit. Allergic to both conversation and technology, Vic is quick to get angry and quick to pull the trigger — a combo that everyone loves in a cop!
One day, leaving his eye doctor’s office after having Lasik surgery, Vic receives a tip on the whereabouts of the drug dealer who murdered his partner, his Great White Whale. Unfortunately, Vic wouldn’t be able to spot a whale if it was right in front of him. Even a white one. Eyes blurry and unable to drive himself, Vic calls for an Uber, and guess who answers. Can these two very different men share a Nissan Leaf while hunting drug dealers across Los Angeles? It’s like The Odd Couple but with more explosions.

ABOUT THE PRODUCTION

In 2016, screenwriter Tripper Clancy and his manager Jake Wagner came up with the idea of a movie about titled Stuber about an Uber driver named Stu. “I always knew based on the name that this would be an action comedy, and the day after Jake and I discussed it I basically had the entire movie in my head,” recalls Clancy. “The buddy cop genre is a personal favorite,” he adds.
It wasn’t long after Clancy developed the script that it was acquired by Twentieth Century Fox, with Michael Dowse (What If, Goon) set to direct, Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley (Game Night, Vacation) producing and Nicholas Thomas (Let’s Be Cops, Scare Tactics), Jeremiah Samuels (Sleepless, Secret in Their Eyes) and Jake Wagner (Killing Season, Evidence) attached as executive producers.
Director Dowse recalls, “After I read this script I thought it was the perfect recipe where you could do something that had a lot of heart and a lot of comedy but I thought the action sequences could work really well and all of these pieces could sort of feed into each other to make a pretty unique film.”
He continues, “I think a lot of times action comedies are either very funny and maybe the action is an afterthought or it’s vice-versa and the action is really well done, but the comedy maybe suffers, and I thought we could make a film that fired on both cylinders in that sense, similar to what John and Jonathan were able to accomplish on Game Night.”
“This is not your typical studio action comedy. Michael Dowse is the perfect director for this because he understands the need to not only be funny, but also to develop human characters that you can relate to and in addition to that he’s a super fun guy and that comes across in his movies,” says executive producer Thomas.
Adds Thomas, “He’s also incredibly smart and knows exactly what he needs to create his films because he comes from an editing background so he’s always thinking about the cut when he’s shooting,” says Thomas.

Grounded in Reality

The filmmakers stressed the importance of making the film feel not only funny but also grounded in reality. Or, you know, as grounded as an edge-of-your-seat run-and-gun car chase across Los Angeles can be. It was important that the average moviegoer could relate to the characters.