NEED TO KNOW
- The Lawrence Brothers are launching a “zany” new venture that involves becoming detectives
- They say the idea had been kicking around forever — and their dad used to joke that they could be the next Hardy Boys
- The project is being funded via Kickstarter
The Lawrence brothers — Joey, Matthew and Andrew — are getting in on the detective genre.
The trio just announced they’ll be launching a new project at Comic-Con that they’re funding via Kickstarter called the Lawrence Brothers Detective Agency.
While it’s going to launch as a graphic novel, the actors already have big plans in place for expansion into an animated series and, hopefully, a live-action show in which they run a detective agency and try to solve (what else?) strange Hollywood mysteries.
“The idea started literally 15 years ago. We were kicking around an idea one time when we were on vacation together,” Matthew, 45, tells PEOPLE of the graphic novel’s origin story.
Andrew, 37, chimes in: “There’s a classic thing in Hawaii, right on the beaches at the nice resorts, where guys lose Rolexes, women lose rings in the surf. So there are these local guys who scan the beach to retrieve these lost precious items. We were like, ‘Oh, how funny would it be if we three, these actors who have all done cop drama shows, decided to help these guys?’ And we came up with storylines where we’d use our procedural drama detective skills to help track down these lost items.”
Many years later, the idea came back to them.
Joey, 49, says, “So we had the Berkowitz brothers pitch us an idea, alongside Brian Yuran, about this Lawrence Brothers Detective Agency that combined everything that we had been talking about, but put it in a structure that was palatable. So it’s a graphic novel that taps into child stardom and nostalgia and the weirdness of Hollywood, and the characters are based on these versions of us who are sort of based on our real personalities. And then we go around solving crimes in Hollywood, like finding lost child actors. It’s all very meta.”
They say it’s just another project that they can’t wait to do together, like their podcast. Brotherly Love, which has been a hit since it launched in 2023.
“It’s awesome,” Matthew says of the podcast. “We had no intention of ever starting a podcast or ever continuing it once we started it, but it’s been so wonderfully reciprocated and the support behind it is touching, it’s a blessing. It’s awesome, and we’re taking it to Vegas for a live show next.”
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Joey adds that the one thing they’re excited about when it comes to the Lawrence Brothers Detective Agency is that it’s something he thinks the whole family can have fun with.
“Honestly, it’s important to us,” he says of producing family fare.
“As zany as it is, and we are going to go a little edgy with it too at times, we want to keep it broad enough so that our diehard fans love it, but also their children love it,” he adds. “I have a 19- and a 15-year-old. I want them to be able to read it. I don’t want it to be too smart for the room or too edgy for everybody. So it won’t be for little kids, but it will be for teens and their parents to enjoy together.”