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A 'Men In Black' Spinoff Is Officially In The Works
You probably won't be seeing them in the new flick, unfortunately. (Courtesy of Sony Pictures/Facebook)
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The men in black are coming back for another round… well, sort of. Sony Pictures is planning a spinoff of the popular sci-fi franchise, Deadline reports, but don’t expect Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones to make an appearance.
Instead, the project, which is slated for a May 2019 release, will likely use new characters to build on and broaden the universe portrayed in the original 1997 movie starring Smith and Jones. The script for the latest installment, which is still untitled, comes from Iron Man scribes Matt Holloway and Art Marcum, who are also the writing duo behind blockbusters like Ultimate Spider-Man and Transformers: The Last Knight, according to Deadline.
The spinoff also has a number of big names attached on the producing side. Steven Spielberg will serve as executive producer and his longtime collaborators, married couple Laurie MacDonald and Walter F. Parkes, are set to produce. The team has yet to choose a director.
This isn’t the first time Sony Pictures has attempted a Men In Black spin-off. As The Hollywood Reporter notes, the studio previously considered a crossover movie that combined the worlds of the alien action movie with that of 21 Jump Street, two of the studio’s highest grossing franchises. The idea apparently came from 21 Jump Street star Jonah Hill, who told THR last year that he doubted the movie would ever get made.
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The original Men In Black, about a secret government agency that monitors extraterrestrial activity on Earth, was released two decades ago (now do you feel old?) and went on to make more than $589 million worldwide, becoming one of Sony Pictures’ highest-grossing films. It’s no wonder, then, that Sony released a string of sequels, including Men in Black II in 2002 and Men in Black III a decade later. The 2019 film marks the fourth in the series.
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