The long-rumored Space Jam sequel set to star basketball superstar Lebron James may have found a director in Terence Nance, according to a report at TheWrap.
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Nance, who works on the HBO series Random Acts of Flyness, also directed the Sundance hit An Oversimplification of Her Beauty.
A Space Jam 2 starring James has been rumored for years, although Warner Bros. acknowleding the possibility was a fairly recent development.
Justin Lin, known for his work on the Fast and the Furious franchise, was originally attached, but pulled out of the project when progress was slow getting the ovie to a filmable place.
The screenplay was written by Bad Words scribe Andrew Dodge, with an earlier version by Charlie Ebersol likely to land him some kind of credit, according to TheWrap.
James has spent much of his career as “the next Michael Jordan,” which seems guaranteed to make for at least one joke along the way. The first Space Jam film saw Jordan and Bill Murray team up with a group of Looney Tunes cartoon characters to determine the fate of the planet by way of a basketball game played against a group of cartoon villains. As the film is in early development, nobody seems to know whether there is any plan for Murray or Jordan to return in some capacity.
James reportedly considered releasing a viral teaser for the movie as part of his announcement that he planned to move to the Los Angeles Lakers earlier this summer, but those plans were apparently scuttled after they leaked.
While the original Space Jam got only middling reviews, it did well at the box office ($230 million globally at a time when those numbers felt much bigger than they do now) and earned a cult following strong enough that today, more than 20 years after the original film’s release, you can buy Space Jam t-shirts in big box retail stores.
There is no official release date, production date, or additional cast (beyond James) for the planned Space Jam 2. Rumor has it James’s decision to move to the Lakers, and thus be in Los Angeles more often, will likely expedite the project.
