Space Jam director Joe Pytka apparently not a fan of Malcolm D. Lee’s A New Legacy
Let he who is without his own Space Jam movie cast the first stone
Film News Space Jam
Among the millions of people—and counting!—who might have reasonable grounds to criticize recent Warner Bros. brand vehicle/also-technically-a-movie Space Jam: A New Legacy, we’d put Joe Pytka somewhere near the bottom. After all, Pytka, as the director of 1996's original Space Jam, is pretty much the definition of a guy living in a glass house here, one who should thus be careful about where he’s chucking stones.
But the same audacity of spirit that apparently told Pytka “This Looney Tunes basketball movie needs more Wayne Knight,” has now led the director—who came to his film as a helmer of commercials and music videos—to hold forth on the topic of its successor to TMZ. And, wouldn’t you know it: Pytka’s not a fan. “The truth is that LeBron ain’t Michael,” Pytka said, drawing negative comparisons between New Legacy star LeBron James and his own star, Michael Jordan. (Pytka’s point was apparently that Jordan was one of the most famous people on the planet, period, when Space Jam came out, whereas James is… One of the most famous people on the planet, period? Also, they’re both terrible actors.) Pytka also noted that it took him 5 sessions to finish the 2-hour sequel, breaks that presumably weren’t inspired by being so excited at seeing his old pal Dr. Evil hanging out with a shaved Sylvester The Cat that he just had to get up and dance around.
Pytka had harsh words for A New Legacy’s soundtrack, its co-stars, and pretty much all of its aspects, which is pretty rough, coming from the guy who made Space Jam. Still, he reserved some of his harshest critique for its status as a Looney Tunes movie, which it just barely is in between being a kid-friendly reminder of how great LeBron James and, like, Game Of Thrones are. Calling the film’s depiction of Bugs Bunny “heartbreaking,” Pytka said that the character’s new 3D model “looked like one of those fluffy dolls you buy at an airport gift shop to bring your kid when your business trip has taken too long.”
And, again: None of this is necessarily wrong. It’s just a little rich coming from the guy who directed Space Jam.
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He was also quoted as saying, “On a mountain of skulls, in a castle of pain, I sat on a throne of blood! What was will be! What is will be no more! Now is the season of evil!”
“On a mountain of skulls, in a castle of pain, I sat on a throne of blood! What was will be! What is will be no more! Now is the season of evil!”He is totally giving me Vigo the Carpathian realness…
Yes yes yes!!
Oh my God oh my God oh my God, I thought that same thing as soon as I saw the picture of him!! I was like, any criticism from Vigo is to be completely disregarded since I saw him shake and drop that baby with my own two eyes!! Plus he lives in a painting floating over a river of pink ooze, what does he know!
I thought I was so clever thinking up the Viggo thing… not only did you do it first, you did it better then I would have. Kudos to you!
I was going to say that’s Dan Aykroyd as the 106-year-old judge, Alvin Valkenheiser from Nothing But Trouble. (Which is basically what Vigo turns into at the end of Ghostbusters II.)
Nice. My first thought was Rooker’s character from the new Suicide Squad:
I’d say of the two Space Jam 1 is slightly better because it doesn’t have rapping Porky Pig or Daffy Duck saying “Well that happened!”, the latter being an egregious anti-joke and the former proof that there is no god. However, both movies treat Lola as either a sexual object or reduce her personality to “Generic Girl Who’s Good at Basketball”.Either way Looney Tunes Back in Action is better than either of them.
Also ‘Space Jam’ benefits from not making dated jokes from already dated properties like ‘The Matrix’, ‘Mad Max: Fury Road’ and ‘Austin Powers’.
Lol imagine thinking space jam is a quality piece of movie
It’s a quality piece of something…
They forgot that it’s all about the ‘Tunes!
If you work in the movies, you hear many “Joe Pytka is an asshole” stories.
How many movies has he done?
Very few. He did Space Jam and a gambling movie with Richard Dreyfuss I think, but he is and always has been a big (really big – he’s like 6’8″) commercials director.
One rather big part of the story being left out here is that Pykta hasn’t exactly had a very sterling career after you’d think a big hit like Space Jam would have given him real clout. He’s mostly been relegated to doing commercials. Which means he clearly knows full well this is the ONLY time in his life when people might actually care what he thinks about anything, so of course he’s going to milk it and make sure we remember it.
He’s mostly been relegated to doing commercials.Given that the first Space Jam was based on a series of commercials, that kind of tracks, really.
Joe Pytka looks like Anthony Hopkins playing Riff Raff in a shadowcast production of The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
I can’t decide if he looks more like a rotting 2015 Biff Tannen or…no, nope, that’s what it is.
the head Vampire in Blade? Or Daybreakers?
He chose. . .poorly.
He looks like a Weinstein in a drag wig to me.
Joe Pytka looks like he hasn’t seen the sun since Space Jam came out.
Nice to see Emperor Palpatine getting work.
Did the original Space Jam have a “canceled” joke in it? No? Then it was a better movie.
I’m not too morally indignant about Space Jam: A New Legacy being blatant brand advertising for HBOMax/WB IP. The kitchen sink approach WB IP to is actually a benefit because it is absolutely shameless and tasteless raiding of the toybox. I mean, they straight up put them in Casablanca in an iconic scene and Rick and Morty show up. At a certain point I actually started to admire it being so brazen. Also the only reason the entire Space Jam thing exists is because of a Nike ad in 93 with Jordan and Bugs. Shameless corporate shilling is imbedded in the DNA.
Shameless corporate shilling? How much is that in shameless corporate sixpence?
“My old piece-of-shit movie is much better than this new piece-of-shit movie!”
Is he going to throw a young girl in a pond and snarl at a crowd of people? I’d say it’s 50/50 at this point
Pytka’s point was apparently that Jordan was one of the most famous people on the planet, period, when Space Jam came out, whereas James is… One of the most famous people on the planet, period?As a non-American, LeBron definitely isn’t even close to as famous as Jordan was in the mid-90s. Very few people are, but still.
And their acting talent is almost perfectly synchronous with their respective levels of fame. Lebron is slightly less huge than mid-90’s Jordan, and a slightly better actor.
The statistician Andrew Gelman writes a bit about Jordan’s status back then here, although unfortunately there are no stats to compare LeBron James with:https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2005/05/12/michael_jordan/
Definitely. Jordan was a phenomenon but as I don’t follow basketball I hadn’t even heard of LeBron until this film
I think we can all agree that nothing will ever taint the legacy of R. Kelly’s inspirational “I Believe I Can Fly”.
The truth is that LeBron ain’t MichaelHarsh but fair.
He’s a lot more qualified to speak about it than someone who just writes for The AV Club
Man, Gérard Depardieu has really let himself go.
All I see is Vigo the Carpathian.
I think you might be overestimating how many people know who LeBron James is outside of the US/NBA fans.Literally EVERYONE in the world knew who Michael Jordan was.