We’ve been hearing about Space Jam sequel, Space Jam: A New Legacy, since 2014, and it’s still tough to believe it’s a real movie coming out this year. But the Looney Tunes gang and LeBron James are, indeed, heading to the basketball court on July 16—making our second pandemic summer perhaps a bit more tolerable. James and Warner Bros. have been tight lipped about the movie for years, but today Entertainment Weekly published an interview with the NBA star that revealed plenty of daffy plot details.
This time, it’s a father-son story, but in case you thought that meant the sequel’s plot wouldn’t be as ridiculous as the original Space Jam’s…well, you’ll have to read the plot for yourself:
Playing a heightened version of himself, James struggles to relate to [his son,] Dom (Cedric Joe), who’s much more interested in creating games than playing them. When Dom’s tech skills draw the attention of a CGI humanoid named Al G Rhythm (Don Cheadle), the father-son duo get sucked into the Warner 3000 entertainment “Server-verse,” with the A.I. kidnapping Dom in the hopes of stealing some of the King’s followers (IRL he has about 80 million on Instagram).
And it only gets wilder from there. When James gets sucked into the Warner Bros. server, he finds himself in some of the studio’s biggest movies while trying to track down the Goon Squad. Director Malcolm D. Lee tells EW that “it was a tricky thing just in terms of what you may want, like, ‘Oh my God, look, there’s Mad Max, and there’s Casablanca!’” James also mentions The Matrix and Wonder Woman as part of that sequence. Lee adds that the sequel will “have a lot of the WB characters at the game, watching like they do at Rucker Park.”
In the EW interview, Don Cheadle says he doesn’t consider Al G Rhythm to be a “bad guy” (With that name, would he even be that intimidating?),
but rather “an A.I. with a chip on his shoulder.” We have so many
questions though: How would Al G Rhythm get away with stealing James’
followers? Wouldn’t they think, “Who the hell is this guy and why am I
following him?” And wouldn’t they just re-follow James?
In case you were wondering what this has to do with basketball, EW’s Derek Lawrence explains that “to save his son and escape this virtual reality, James must round up the Tunes, including a banished Bugs Bunny, to defeat the formidable Goon Squad.” It still makes no sense, but alright. Anything goes in the Looney Tunes world.
The silver lining thing is that everyone involves seems to deeply care about the original Space Jam. Producer Ryan Coogler told EW that he “proudly recalls performing the film’s track ‘Hit ‘Em High’ at his middle school talent show” and James says “The Goon Squad is probably the best team ever assembled in basketball history.”
44 Comments
I don’t really dig this trend of 2D characters now being CGI in films. (Those Looney Tunes CGI shorts from a few years ago were good, though)
They look bad.
“Go away or I’ll call the Goon Squad!”“I’m on the Goon Squad!”“You are the Goon Squad!”
WTF did I just read?
Now that my brain is done vomiting into its own mind-mouth and swallowing it after reading that plot description – I’m low-key pumped for this, if only because LeBron is actually pretty funny compared to MJ.But holy shit that plot. Why even shoe-horn basketball into it? Where the fuck do the Goon Squad even come in?
Those old Nike commercials where he was playing members of his fictional family showed that he has a bit more talent in front of the camera than Jordan.
Also, weren’t they the Tune Squad in the original?
The real question is why was Bugs Bunny banished? I’m going to assume until told otherwise that it’s because of some off-color jokes he told on Twitter.
Lebron was REALLY good in Train Wreck.
He was the best part of what was otherwise a pretty underwhelming movie. Bill Hader didn’t have anything to do and Amy Schumer, bless her heart, just can’t carry a movie imo.
I remember John Cena being actually pretty funny, too. So chalk up another one for the cameos.
The whole movie underwhemed me, though. I loved “Inside Amy Schumer,” so Schumer is definitely hilarious with the right material, but I think you’re right that she can’t carry a movie. Sketches, absolutely. 120 minutes, not really.
Oh, like ‘algorithm’. Gotcha.
Al Gore has rhythm?
Warner Bros really likes making movies where they just dump a ton of their IP in one spot, huh? The Lego Movies, Ready Player One, Looney Tunes: Back in Action, now this.
Will Lola Bunny be in the film? If so, will she be the grrrl-power stereotype of the first Space Jam, the ditz stereotype of The Looney Tunes Show, or some attempt at reconciling those characterizations? I kinda hope it’s the latter.
The Lola of the Looney Tunes Show was hilarious. Kristin Wiig killed it.
All of the above! Both versions, along with her Loonatics Unleashed counterpart and other iterations, all appear together in a post-credits sequence peddling the film’s follow-up: Enter the Lolaverse
So Who Framed Roger Rabbit and Tron with a pinch of Spy Kids.
CHILDREN will love it.
Graduated 8th Grade to “I Beleive I Can Fly”
When James gets sucked into the Warner Bros. server, he finds himself in
some of the studio’s biggest movies while trying to track down the Goon
Squad. Director Malcolm D. Lee tells EW that “it was a tricky thing just in terms of what you may want, like, ‘Oh my God, look, there’s Mad Max, and there’s Casablanca!’
Oh my fucking goodness. They’re ripping off Overdrawn the Memory Bank.
Fun fact: the plot of the Pam Anderson-starring comic book movie Barb Wire is just Casablanca in a slightly sci-fi setting.
But gender-swapped as Pam’s character is that story’s version of Rick. It’s terrible, as Anderson can’t act, but I have a fondness for it anyway.
It caused a minor craze in my school among the 9 year olds who desperately wanted to be horny 13 year olds; there was a trading card set and one of our newspapers had a pull out supplement promoting the film. Sadly this wasn’t the demographic that could actually see the film, so it wasn’t much help at the Box Office.
Homestly, one of the more decent movies featured on MST3K. If anything, it has Raul Julia going for it.
I do un-ironically love that movie. It’s just so completely 80s in every single aspect. And Raul does of course deliver a very good performance from a very badly written role.
Alright, but if the Goon Squad theme song doesn’t have a verse by Kendrick Lamar I’m fucking out.
I for one cannot wait for LeJon Brames’s unique brand of wooden yet intentionally humorous acting.
Fucking hell this is gonna suck. The first one had a simple plot that kids could easily understand and enjoy. This is very unnecessary
Signs that other children my age had terrible taste: Home Improvement being voted the best TV comedy by my classmates in the middle of the prime era of The Simpsons.Space Jam being a big hit that many of them still have bafflingly fond memories of.
Space Jam was still fun, but by no means good. For the Simpsons I’m willing to bet a ton of parents forbade their kids from watching it, instead letting them watch a show starring a cokehead. Back in the day the Simpsons terrified parents. I wasn’t allowed to watch it until around the time i was allowed to watch South Park, weirdly enough
I think it is fair to call Tim Allen a shitbag, but I don’t think it is fair to call him a cokehead. Cocaine is a hell of a drug, addiction is a bitch, and I wouldn’t minimize anyone’s accomplishment of fighting through it. He was in recovery long before Home Improvement.Still a shitbag, though.
That is true, I don’t want to demonize anyone going through addiction, and that is a hard one to kick. So, sorry about that.
You can criticise him for narcing on his friends though.
Why is there a nostalgia for Space Jam? It’s unwatchable.
It’s a jam, but in SPACE! Plus, Michael Jordan played a decent human being. Kind of a stretch, I know. What’s not to love?
I am still utterly amazed this is being made. Like, it’s banking on nostalgia for a movie that even the people who really enjoy it know they’re only doing so kinda ironically.I hate this with every fiber of my being. I don’t know why, it’s ultimately not that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things, but I just loathe it. It is the epitome of the glut of soulless reboots and cash grabs in Hollywood. It is a multi-million dollar movie adaptation of a meme, of an internet joke, brought to fruition by execs with no sense of irony.
It’s a basketball movie starring a popular NBA player and the crew from the beloved Looney tunes cartoons. It’s not that hard to see why this is being made. The space jam name recognition certainly helps.
And I think that name recognition will be super powerful in this case. Remember when they revived Ecto Cooler? Millennials went nuts for the stuff. Several of my friends still have cans of it on their nerd shelves next to the Slurm.
Everyone I know loves “Space Jam” about as much as they love “Ghostbusters,” so I’m assuming this one’ll make a shitload of merch money.
They’re gonna overthink this. LeBron will probably be better at this than Jordan, but if it flops he’ll get blamed
Oh, what? The Space Jam sequel is a further exercise in brand synergy and nothing more? To the extent that they’ll mine their own existing assets in a cynical attempt to produce content without having to be creative? I’m shocked. SHOCKED.And I’ll be equally SHOCKED when this film turns out to be “a remake of the first movie right down to the bit where characters outright reel off lists of product placement, but with those insert-the-guy-into-other-footage effects from Forrest Gump included”.
Just to be really clear – this is going to be 10x better if high.
“Playing a heightened version of himself”.LeBron James is already 6ft 9. How tall are they planning on making him?
Eh, just watch Looney Tunes on HBOMax, doc. I love the fact that my son now quotes Looney Tunes. I overheard him going through Daffy Duck’s “dethpicable” monologue while he was playing the other day.“You’re despicable. And…and picable. And you’re very….very…despicable. How someone could get so despicable in one lifetime is beyond me. I mean, goodness knows, it’s not like I’ve met a lot of people, goodness knows. It isn’t that…goodness…knows…”
Well we now know what film the July 23rd episode of ‘How Did This Get Made?’ is going to cover.