LeBron James To Appear In ‘Space Jam 2’
LeBron James is following up the role he played in Trainwreck with a role that seems to suit him more: the coach in Space Jam 2. Things are meant to start rolling sometime in 2019. Though exact dates remain uncertain, filming will take place in the NBA off-season.
Springhill Entertainment, the company behind this iteration of Space Jam, has not made many details public just yet, but they did give fans a glimpse of the major talent involved in this production. Bugs Bunny will, of course, be in the film. Terence Nance, who created the HBO series Random Acts of Flyness, as well as An Oversimplification of Her Beauty, will be directing. And Black Panther director Ryan Coogler will act as producer.
The original Space Jam starred Michael Jordan as the man guiding Bugs Bunny and his team against their alien competitors. It debuted in 1996, which might make a lot of fans who watched the film the first time around feel quite old.
Time reports that LeBron described how much participating in the film means to him.
“The Space Jam collaboration is so much more than just me and the Looney Tunes getting together and doing this movie. It’s so much bigger. I’d just love for kids to understand how empowered they can feel and how empowered they can be if they don’t just give up on their dreams. And I think Ryan [Coogler] did that for a lot of people.”
Responses to the sequel, however, haven’t been all sunshine and rainbows. Some believe that it’s just too tough to top the original Space Jam, and that the new film won’t be able to compare to the film that made childhoods just a little bit better. Others can’t wait to see Bugs Bunny and the gang back in action.
Time says that Space Jam was the “highest grossing basketball movie of all time,” and that it featured other players who were at the top of their game back in 1996. The Hollywood Reporter states that the film earned a whopping $250 million, which sets the bar pretty high for this new version of the classic tale.
Black Panther, for the record, brought in $1.34 billion.
According to NBA.com, “LeBron ‘Hollywood’ James is in full effect,” though this will be James’s first role as the star of a feature film. And fans are waiting to see which NBA (and WNBA?) superstars will grace the court with him.
