MIB 23: Channing Tatum on Sony’s Scrapped Men in Black/Jump Street Crossover

By Cameron Bonomolo

Channing Tatum still wants to graduate from Jump Street to the Men in Black. More than five years after Sony Pictures announced the never-made Jump Street and Men in Black crossover, 21 and 22 Jump Street directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller confirmed this week the franchise mashup "came very close to happening." James Bobin (Flight of the Conchords, Dora and the Lost City of Gold) was set to direct Tatum and Jonah Hill's undercover cops in the officially titled MIB 23, but the crossover languished in development hell before Sony revived the Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones-starring MIB franchise — without Smith or Jones — in 2019's Men in Black: International.

"I still think it could work, I really do. And if Sony would ever really, like, do the hard work and figure out the producer problems that are inherent with that film, I think we can still do it," Tatum told Collider. "But right now, I don't know why, they're just not motivated to do it. It's a big overhead on that movie, so."

The MIB 23 script from 22 Jump Street writer Rodney Rothman was "by and away the best third sequel to any franchise that I've ever read, in my entire life," Tatum said. "I would not say that if I did not really believe it, because I don't like being wrong, like, specifically about that." 

According to Tatum, it would take nothing less than an MIB-issued neuralyzer to erase costly producer fees from the memories of the producers needed to sign on to MIB 23. 

"There's [Men in Black producer Steven] Spielberg, [Jump Street producer] Neal Moritz, and [Men in Black producer] Walter Parkes," Tatum said. "They're giant producers, y'know, on that. And then once everybody is kinda like, not willing to come off their fee, you end up having a producer fee that is essentially, maybe more than the actual budget on the movie." 

While promoting Chris Hemsworth's MIB: International 2019, Men in Black series producers Laurie MacDonald and Walter F. Parkes told CinemaBlend the planned MIB 23 "didn't quite get 'there.'" MacDonald and Parkes ultimately realized that the MIB and Jump Street franchises are "not very compatible." 

In a recent appearance on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, Lord and Miller said the MIB 23 script "was very funny and very crazy" with an idea "that we really adored." 

"The idea was Jonah and Channing, a thing happened while they were doing their medical school adventure that got them embroiled into the world of Men in Black and that got them teaming up to stop an alien takeover type of thing," Miller said. "It was very funny, it was crazy trying to manage these two franchises and not drive them both into the ground seemed like a real challenge."

Tatum also pitched to Sony a Batman Begins-style Ghostbusters movie with Chris Pratt co-starring and Lord & Miller producing.

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