23 Jump Street/Men In Black Crossover Is Happening, James Bobin Rumoured To Direct

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Woo! Here come the Men in Black! But perhaps, not the ones you were expecting.

One of the most curious developments to come out of the Sony hack – well for moviegoers at least – was the news that the studio was considering merging two of its biggest franchises, 21 Jump Street and Men in Black.

It’s a wild idea; inspired, you may think, by the end titles of 22 Jump Street, which promised a near-endless amount of absurd sequels based around the premise of stars Johan Hill and Channing Tatum infiltrating everything from ballet school to culinary classes – perhaps someone at Sony saw it and decided to add a whole other level of crazy on top.

Well, it’s now moving forward with Alice Through the Looking Glass director James Bobin at the helm. According to Variety, the 23 Jump Street Men in Black 4 crossover hasn’t been greenlit just yet, but the studio is eager to push ahead with the project. They’re already in conversation with Bobin and have tentatively pencilled in a June start date for the shoot.

Tatum and Hill are set to reprise their roles as Jenko and Schmitt as well serving as producers for the project. However, the Men in Black pairing of Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones won’t be returning. Instead, the studio will be looking for ‘younger, fresher faces’ to carry on the series.

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One of them might even be a woman. No new casting has been announced, however, if Sony really wants to start in June, we’d expect an update sooner rather than later.

Original Jump Street directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller will serve as producers on the MIB crossover, as the duo will be busy off in a galaxy far, far away, directing the er, ‘solo’ Han Solo Star Wars Anthology movie.

Jump Street producer Neal Moritz will return too, working from a script by Rodney Rothman – plot details are being kept under wraps but, rumour has it, the film will make those post-credit sequels canon; which is perhaps the most exciting element of the production so far.

There remains the issue of whether or not the Jump Street universe is just silly enough to introduce sci-fi or supernatural elements into it. Both films have been hugely successful for Sony, perhaps unexpectedly so while the Men in Black franchise has flounder somewhat after the runaway success of the original.

2012’s Men in Black 3 did great business outside of the US but didn’t earn enough favourable buzz to warrant an immediate follow up. You get the feeling both have been victims of their own success: one unable to capture the buzz of its predecessors, the other, garnering such a rave response that it’s difficult to see how they’ll keep that momentum up – especially with all the involved parties moving on to a myriad of other exciting projects – and, of course, their own sly digs at the law of diminishing returns.

However, Sony are also developing a separate female-driven 21 Jump Street spin-off with Broad City writers Lucia Aniello and Paul W. Downs penning a competing draft alongside Bob’s Burgers writers Lizzie and Wendy Molyneux.

It’s unclear if one will be picked over the other or perhaps, we will end up with an amalgamated script – the practice is growing, with more projects working from competing scripts; Wonder Woman reported had five writers working on various drafts.

Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, one Warner Bros exec shared the studio’s thoughts on the practice.

“On some projects, we have multiple writers working together. In some cases, we put writers together who have never been a team together. And sometimes, there is only one writer whose voice is right. In the case of Wonder Woman, the right approach was to have writers pitching different scenes within the framework we created.”

Perhaps Sony will adopt a similar method when it comes to the 21 Jump Street spin-off.

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