In what has to be the craziest news to come along in some time, Sony is looking to merge two of its franchises– ‘Men In Black’ and ’21 Jump Street’. Director James Bobin (‘The Muppets’, ‘Alice Through The Looking Glass’) is being courted to direct the film, which will star Channing Tatum (Jenko) and Jonah Hill (Schmidt) who will both also produce. Phil Lord and Christopher Miller directed ’21 Jump Street’ and ’22 Jump Street’ but are occupied directing the Han Solo movie for Disney. The pair will serve as producers, however.
Sony has confirmed that neither Will Smith nor Tommy Lee Jones are being sought for the new film, as the studio hopes to use this installment as a springboard for a new franchise with younger stars. Last year, we reported that the studio was also looking to cast a female in the lead of a planned reboot.
While this mashup film has not gotten the official greenlight, Sony is apparently quite keen on making this happen and hopes to begin production in June. Rodney Rothman has penned a script that the studio appears to be pleased with.
Hints to this seemingly crazy crossover first came to light in 2014 when Sony experienced a massive company-wide hack with hundreds of emails leaked to the press and public. While many on social media balked at the idea of merging these seemingly incongruous brands, Sony is still moving forward with it.
The ‘Jump Street’ movies have proven quite popular for Sony. The concept of adult cops pretending to be first high school, then college students is adapted from the 80s TV series that is perhaps best known for launching Johnny Depp’s career. (Depp made a cameo in ’21 Jump Street’.) Sony released a third ‘Men In Black’ movie in 2012, which was financially successful but not enough so to kickstart the franchise.
Separately, Sony is moving forward with an all-female version of ‘Jump Street’, which presumably will not be a sci fi movie.
Well, what do you think? Can these two wildly different franchises work together? Who would you like to see step into the lead roles as the ‘Men (or Women) In Black’?