A few weeks back Space Jam: A New Legacy — the very belated sequel to the basketball-and-Looney Tunes original — became the most controversial movie of 2021. It was back when conservative media was distracting itself with fury over children’s entertainment. Grabby Pepe Le Pew had been removed. Lola Bunny was now feminist. Suddenly it wasn’t just another franchise entry that people might be able to actually watch on a big screen.
But ignore all that for now: The sequel now has its first official trailer, and it’s not controversial in the least. We’ve been promised it will involve far more the just Bugs Bunny and gang. It will involve the entire, vast Warner Bros. catalogue. We get some of the big players here. Star LeBron James is tasked with forming an all-star basketball team — all so he can save his son from an evil Don Cheadle — and he winds up, as Michael Jordan did 25 years earlier, rounding up the Looney Tunes gang.
We see some others owned by Warner Bros. (or at least licensed to them). There’s the Iron Giant, plus King Kong, who was just seen in his own vs. movie. There’s even some Hanna-Barbera toons, including the Flintstones and Yogi Bear. One item not there: Bill Murray, who it appears will be sitting this sequel out, much as he did Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle.
Space Jam: A New Legacy hits theaters on July 16.
