Jason Statham & Jennifer Lopez Team Up For Hard-Hitting Action Movie You Can Stream Free Right Now
Jason Statham and Jennifer Lopez's heist film Parker is streaming on Tubi.
Looking for a breezy heist movie that stars Fast X‘s Jason Statham and Jennifer Lopez to watch this weekend? You’re in luck because the 2013 thriller Parker is streaming for free on Tubi right now. This probably won’t be the most mind-blowing action film you’ll see this year, but it could be the perfect Sunday afternoon watch if you’re bored.
Parker is a film adaptation of the Donald Westlake (pen name Richard Stark) novel Flashfire. Jason Statham stars as the titular thief, who enlists the help of a real estate agent (Jennifer Lopez) to pull off a heist to get back at his accomplices who double-crossed him. The film is directed by Taylor Hackford and adapted by John J. McLaughlin.
Along with Jason Statham and Jennifer Lopez, Parker has a solid cast that includes Michael Chiklis, Wendell Pierce, Clifton Collins Jr, Bobby Cannavale, Patti LuPone, Carlos Carrasco, Michah Hauptman, Emma Booth, and Nick Nolte. While Parker is a decent enough film, it won’t be everyone’s cup of tea. Looking at the Rotten Tomatoes score, you can see critics were a bit harsher with an aggregate 41% score compared to the 48% from audiences.
Despite having marquee stars like Jason Statham and Jennifer Lopez, Parker had a fairly middling performance at the box office. The film managed to gross around $17.6 million domestically and $46.9 million against a budget of $35 million. The film even pushed its release date back due to potential competition from films like Ryan Gosling’s Gangster Squad and Here Comes the Boom.
While Parker is the only film about the character that stars Jason Statham, there are several other films adapted from Parker novels out there. Westlake, the author of the novel series, wouldn’t allow films to be made using the actual Parker name unless the studios planned a whole series of films. Rather than set up a franchise, substitute names were used in place of Parker.
The films that include the Parker character and that adapt the novels include Lee Marvin in Point Blank (based on The Hunter), Michel Constantin in Pillaged (based on The Score), Anna Karina in Made in U.S.A. (partly based on The Jugger), Jim Brown in The Split, Robert Duvall in The Outfit, Peter Coyote in Slayground, and Mel Gibson in Payback. Interestingly, the Parker with Jason Statham and Jennifer Lopez was the first movie where they actually could use the Parker name. This is because Westlake’s widow sold screen rights for the Flashfire novel to Les Alexander after Westlake’s death, with the caveat that the name could be used if there were options for future adaptations if the film was successful.
While the Jason Statham and Jennifer Lopez Parker never really took off, we do have an update on the franchise all of these years later. Shane Black is set to develop a series of movie and TV projects for Amazon Studios based on the Westlake novels. The first film in the deal is reportedly Play Dirty and will star Robert Downey Jr in the Parker role.
While we wait to see Parker return to the big screen, you might as well check out the 2013 adaptation. While the Jason Statham and Jennifer Lopez version probably won’t be as good as the upcoming RDJ film, it’s still the most recent adaptation we have. Stay tuned for more news on the upcoming Parker film.
