Channing Tatum still wants to make that Jump Street-Men in Black crossover, but says it’s all down to Sony to produce what he calls, "by and away the best third sequel to any franchise that I've ever read, in my entire life."
During an interview with Collider, the 21 Jump Street star confirmed that the long-awaited Men in Black crossover could still happen, but that Sony and producers are what stand in the way.
“I still think it could work, I really do,” he said. “And if Sony would ever really, like, I think do the hard work and figure out the producer problems that are inherent with that film, I think we can still do it.”
Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill starred in 21 Jump Street and its sequel 22 Jump Street, the hit comedies about two cops forced to go undercover in high school. A crossover, known as MIB 23, has been on the cards since 2015 after its existence was revealed in a series of leaked Sony emails.
While the project instantly gained a lot of interest, it looks as though Sony may have moved on: “Right now, I don't know why, they're just not motivated to do it,” said Tatum. “It's a big overhead on that movie, so…”
Tatum also described the crossover as "by and away the best third sequel to any franchise that I've ever read, in my entire life."
In the interview, Reid Carolin (who co-directed Dog with Tatum) called it one of the funniest scripts he'd ever read, and Tatum agreed: "Bar none. I would not say that if I did not really believe it. Because I don't like being wrong, like, specifically about that".
What exactly does Sony need to do to get MIB 23 off the ground? It looks as though the trouble is getting each franchise's producers to play ball.
"There's [Steven] Spielberg, Neil Moritz, and Walter Parks," said Tatum. "They're giant producers, y'know, on that. And then once everybody is kinda like, not willing to come off their fee, you end up having a producer fee that is essentially, maybe more than the actual budget on the movie."
The trouble with producer contracts is that every producer gets a fee when a film is made. Some older contracts, such as those for Men in Black, were written to give producers greater control or higher fees. When it comes to making a crossover with these franchsies, those producers need to be paid, and that could end up drastically affecting a film's budget. In this case, it might make it just too difficult for MIB 23 to make a profit.
The ambitious project was at one time going to be directed by The Muppet’ James Bobin, and while the plot was kept firmly under wraps, directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller recently offered up more details about how that crossover would happen.
“It was basically the idea was that Jonah and Channing… a thing happened while they were doing their medical school adventure that got them embroiled into the world of Men in Black and they ended up teaming up to stop an alien takeover type of thing,” said Miller. “So, it was very funny, it was very crazy, trying to sort of like manage these two franchises and not drive them both into the ground seemed like a real challenge.”
“One of my favorite ideas is that the Men in Black… the black suits were like martial arts belts that you had to work your way up to black and that [Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum] were issued powder blue Men in Black suits,” said Lord.
Although there’s still a glimmer of hope that we’ll see MIB 23 one day, producer Walter Parkes admitted in 2019 that it was going nowhere.
“We gave it a shot,” he said. “It turned out to be an impossible match-up."
Ryan Leston is an entertainment journalist and film critic for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter.
Continue reading...
During an interview with Collider, the 21 Jump Street star confirmed that the long-awaited Men in Black crossover could still happen, but that Sony and producers are what stand in the way.
“I still think it could work, I really do,” he said. “And if Sony would ever really, like, I think do the hard work and figure out the producer problems that are inherent with that film, I think we can still do it.”
Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill starred in 21 Jump Street and its sequel 22 Jump Street, the hit comedies about two cops forced to go undercover in high school. A crossover, known as MIB 23, has been on the cards since 2015 after its existence was revealed in a series of leaked Sony emails.
While the project instantly gained a lot of interest, it looks as though Sony may have moved on: “Right now, I don't know why, they're just not motivated to do it,” said Tatum. “It's a big overhead on that movie, so…”
Tatum also described the crossover as "by and away the best third sequel to any franchise that I've ever read, in my entire life."
In the interview, Reid Carolin (who co-directed Dog with Tatum) called it one of the funniest scripts he'd ever read, and Tatum agreed: "Bar none. I would not say that if I did not really believe it. Because I don't like being wrong, like, specifically about that".
What exactly does Sony need to do to get MIB 23 off the ground? It looks as though the trouble is getting each franchise's producers to play ball.
"There's [Steven] Spielberg, Neil Moritz, and Walter Parks," said Tatum. "They're giant producers, y'know, on that. And then once everybody is kinda like, not willing to come off their fee, you end up having a producer fee that is essentially, maybe more than the actual budget on the movie."
The trouble with producer contracts is that every producer gets a fee when a film is made. Some older contracts, such as those for Men in Black, were written to give producers greater control or higher fees. When it comes to making a crossover with these franchsies, those producers need to be paid, and that could end up drastically affecting a film's budget. In this case, it might make it just too difficult for MIB 23 to make a profit.
The ambitious project was at one time going to be directed by The Muppet’ James Bobin, and while the plot was kept firmly under wraps, directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller recently offered up more details about how that crossover would happen.
“It was basically the idea was that Jonah and Channing… a thing happened while they were doing their medical school adventure that got them embroiled into the world of Men in Black and they ended up teaming up to stop an alien takeover type of thing,” said Miller. “So, it was very funny, it was very crazy, trying to sort of like manage these two franchises and not drive them both into the ground seemed like a real challenge.”
“One of my favorite ideas is that the Men in Black… the black suits were like martial arts belts that you had to work your way up to black and that [Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum] were issued powder blue Men in Black suits,” said Lord.
Although there’s still a glimmer of hope that we’ll see MIB 23 one day, producer Walter Parkes admitted in 2019 that it was going nowhere.
“We gave it a shot,” he said. “It turned out to be an impossible match-up."
Ryan Leston is an entertainment journalist and film critic for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter.
Continue reading...