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The creators of “21 Jump Street” know what you’re thinking, because they were thinking it, too.
“I didn’t want to make a TV show into a movie,” star and co-writer Jonah Hill says. “I thought it was really lazy and stupid and eye-rolling and unoriginal.”
So the challenge became how do you make a movie based on a 1980s TV series for the 21st century and not end up with something tired and lame? Or worse, end up with “The A-Team”?
For starters, you discard most everything about the show, keeping only the premise: Baby-face cops are sent back to high school, posing as students, in order to bust a drug ring.
“The thing that
everyone connected with was the idea of reliving your high school years. What if you think you have all the answers, but you go back and you have none of the answers?” Hill says.
“So whether it was called ‘21 Jump Street’ or ‘Narcs’ or ‘Two Cops Go Back to High School,’ I don’t give a s- -t,” he says.
“I was a fan of the [original] show. I watched it every single Friday,” says Channing Tatum, who plays meat-head cop and Hill’s partner Greg Jenko. “But I don’t think you have to call this thing ‘21 Jump Street.’ ”
The project initially began with a script whose tone more closely mirrored that of the original TV series, a police drama that began on the fledgling Fox network in 1987 and starred a then-unknown Johnny Depp. But that take created its own problems.
“It scared everyone. How do you find the next Johnny Depp?” says Phil Lord, co-director of the new movie.
“Even if the actor turned out to be the next Johnny Depp, you’d be like, ‘Well, it’s not Johnny Depp,’ ” says co-director Chris Miller.
Ultimately, Hill heard about the remake and had the idea to turn the story on its head — as an R-rated comedy.
“When Jonah and I first started talking about developing something together, it was not in the context of ‘21 Jump Street,’ ” says screenwriter Michael Bacall. “We had watched ‘Pineapple Express,’ and it just looked so fun, and we had conversations about coming up with an action comedy.”
And while the original series was ripe for parody with its overacting, dated fashions and poignant scenes of Depp playing saxophone, the filmmakers were determined not to go that way.
“We didn’t want it to feel like it was making fun of the old show, like, ‘Hey, look at my crazy ’80s wig and my ’80s outfits,’” says Miller. “We wanted to make sure the movie was grounded in a certain reality.”
Getting that reality meant trying to reflect what’s going on in high school now. To find out, Lord, Miller and Bacall talked to teachers and administrators at California’s El Camino, and even attended a prom.
“We tried to get into some after-parties, but they said, ‘Get out of here, you narcs,’ ” Miller jokes.
What the directors, who are in their mid-30s, discovered after talking to teens was that high school is different from their day, especially the social orders.
“High school is not how they depict it in movies,” Lord says. “The quarterback isn’t the coolest kid in school anymore. At Santa Monica High School, socially conscious,
enviro-guys were the popular ones. We thought that was funny.”
“The social strata are different now, and everyone is communicating on Facebook and texting each other, and the connections are more wide-ranging and less clique-ish,” Miller says. “There’s not such a hierarchy anymore.”
The research informed the story, which had Hill’s and Tatum’s characters switching places when they return to high school. Hill’s Schmidt was a nerd the first time around, while Tatum’s Jenko was a popular jock, but when they return, the roles are flipped and Schmidt ends up as the popular one. Jenko, who is ostracized for driving a gas-guzzling muscle car and bullying nerds, is left to hang out with the serious bottom feeders. Even the bad-boy drug dealer the cops are trying to take down has a sensitive side: He’s into composting and electric cars and protecting the environment.
“When I was in high school, we couldn’t care less about the environment,” Hill says. “Now, the kid who’s the most popular in school would care about recycling.”
Regardless of how well “21 Jump Street” does, don’t expect similar projects from the cast.
“I don’t know if I’d be willing to make any [TV remakes] after this,” Tatum says. “It would become too much of a trend.”
“I’m never remaking anything again,” Hill says definitively. “I don’t want that to be what I’m known for.’”
Of course, there could be one exception. The conclusion of “21 Jump Street” pointedly sets things up for a sequel.
reed.tucker@nypost.com