Sony has not had a great month. After getting hacked by somebody (who is totally not North Korea you guys), pretty much all the studio’s internal secrets and spitballing ideas have tumbled out onto the internet. And one of those ideas would apparently cross the studio’s two biggest comedy franchises.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the idea is more 23 Jump Street than Men In Black 4. Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones would essentially have cameos, if present at all, and it would be about C-Tates and Jonah Hill fighting aliens. It seems that Sony, after Men In Black 3 had a disappointing outing, wants to revive the franchise using their unexpected R-rated buddy cops to introduce a few new agents and concepts.
Honestly, it sounds dumb on paper but it’s not a terrible idea. One of the running jokes of 22 Jump Street is that the franchise is a creative dead end, and the movie has a point. They can’t exactly send our heroes to grad school undercover, although the MFA is a rich source of comedy material. So bringing in the aliens wouldn’t be the worst direction to go in.
That said, this sounds more like an idea that will turn into a Men In Black reboot and become a trivia question, like Die Hard originally being a sequel to Commando. It’s just that usually we find this out after the fact. Also, man are Chris Miller and Phil Lord going to be busy at Sony; they’ve not only got this one, they’ve also got that animated Spider-Man movie on the way. Spidey first, Sony, Spidey first.
