Florida, man: Demoted detective turned restaurant inspector, Vince Vaughn unravels a mystery in 'Bad Monkey'

After decades in the movie industry, Vince Vaughn has moments of excitement.

Case in point, playing Andrew Yancy in the Apple TV+ series “Bad Monkey.”

Vaughn said he was looking forward to being part of the TV series production, which is based on Carl Hiaasen’s novel of the same name, which premiered on Apple TV+ on Aug. 14 with two episodes.

Florida, man: Demoted detective turned restaurant inspector, Vince Vaughn unravels a mystery in 'Bad Monkey'

New episodes will be available to stream each Wednesday through Oct. 9.

“But when I read this book, I loved everything about it,” Vaughn said. “The world was so vivid and exciting, the characters so rich. I see Andrew Yancy as a guy with a strong sense of justice for the underdog. He chooses to be optimistic and has a sense of humor about things, even if they are dire. He doesn’t allow himself to be paralyzed, hardened or saddened by his experiences. He tries to overcome challenges by maintaining a somewhat comedic perspective.”

“Bad Monkey” is a 10-episode series based on Hiaasen’s 2013 bestselling novel.

It tells the story of Andrew Yancy, played by Vaughn, a one-time detective demoted to restaurant inspector in South Florida.

A severed arm found by a tourist at sea pulls Yancy into the world of greed and corruption that decimates the land and environment in both Florida and the Bahamas. And yes, there’s a monkey.

The ensemble cast includes Michelle Monaghan, Jodie Turner-Smith, Meredith Hagner, Natalie Martinez, L. Scott Caldwell, Ronald Peet, John Ortiz and Alex Moffat.

The series has long been a passion project for showrunner Bill Lawrence, who is a longtime fan of Hiaasen’s work.

“I started reading Carl’s books as a teenager,” Lawrence said. “Then I got to a place in my career when I could seek him out. He was one of those guys who was as cool as you would hope.”

Lawrence said because Hiaasen’s novels are filled with a lot of nuance — a feature film was the first route to go.

Then, realizing the complexities within the story, it seemed that a TV series would be the way to fully capture the world.

“Turning Carl’s work into a 10-hour series allowed us to explore the characters and the story,” Lawrence said. “One of my favorite things about his books is that the story always operates on multiple levels. The cleanest version of this story is a murder mystery. There’s a central case that drives it.”

Lawrence wrote the script for the first episode and brought in his old friend and colleague, Emmy nominee Matt Tarses, to collaborate.

“One of the coolest things about this experience is that I got to work with Matt who was one of the original writers on ‘Scrubs,’ ” Lawrence said. “He’s super talented. The way we worked on set was to first get the lines the way they were written, then play around and make the jokes work better. We used the environment — and the animals — around us to make the scenes funnier.”

As Lawrence and the rest of the creative team started to turn their collective mind to casting, there was no shortage of highly-regarded actors interested in the project, but everyone was especially ecstatic when Vaughn expressed a desire to play the lead role.

“I couldn’t have been more surprised that Vince Vaughn wanted to embrace this wisecracking larger-than-life character who won’t let anyone get in his way,” Lawrence said. “He brought that effortless banter and comedic sensibility to the role. Vince is funny and talented, and not only as a performer but as a writer. He’s a guy that can deliver that type of material.”

When the severed arm is found, everyone in the Key West Police Department wants it to disappear, knowing it will only cause problems.

“I think that becomes the thing that’s very telling about Yancy,” Vaughn said. “He senses foul play and feels compelled to investigate. The voices around him say, ‘Why do this and complicate your life?’ It seems risky to pursue this. As he goes forward, it becomes more dangerous. He almost wishes he could stop, but he can’t. So that becomes the question: What is the value of pursuing something to the extent that you sacrifice everything versus being able to let some things go?”