Space Jam 2 Is Happening, Has A Director, Will Star LeBron James. Rejoice Emotionally Stunted 90's Kids!

Every three or four years, some poor souls hired up by Warner Bros.(or more likely their marketing team) finds a new way to desecrate the great Looney Tunes characters in an effort to make them "edgy" or "totally modern bro". The Looney Tunes Show didn't work, that Loonatics Unleashed thing failed, all these kinds of efforts just never go anywhere and it's not surprising why. Characters like Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck were created to work in the environment of 8-9 minute long short films run before motion pictures in the 30's and 40's. It boggles my mind that the folks over at Cartoon Network (a TV station that, like Warner Bros., is owned by Time Warner) don't just do little short films with these characters to air on their network instead of putting all of this energy into new "hip" versions of the characters that don't catch on.

Well, there was one "edgy" version of these characters that did catch on. That version was...Space Jam. Oy. The movie my generation has turned into something of a classic, a vestige of our collective childhood held up as a hallmark of 90's cinema. As a child who despised sports more than broccoli, I personally hated the movie simply because the Looney Tunes characters never got anything to do. I had to wade through sequence upon sequence of Michael Jordan attempting to act just to get to a few minutes of Looney Tunes mayhem, which wasn't even funny enough to warrant me stomaching the live-action sequences. A re-watch of the film with peers in my generation only furthered my displeasure with Space Jam though I will note that the Space Jam song is solid fluff and a cameo from Bill Murray so odd it does become perversely entertaining.

Basically, the concept of another Space Jam movie is about as appealing to me as the idea of running into Freddy Kruger, Leatherface, the Puppets from Puppet Master, Jason Voorhees, Pinhead, Jigsaw, Chucky and Black Phillip in one darkened alleyway. Now The Hollywood Reporter brings word that Justin Lin has officially signed on to direct the project and that LeBron James (long rumored to take part in the movie) is officially signed on to star. Oh goody. Look, LeBron showed real comedic chops in last year's Trainwreck, while Lin has demonstrated he could be a solid filmmaker with the fifth and sixth Fast & Furious movies, but even the two of them together is nowhere near enough to get me excited for the prospect of the return of the Monstars. Prepare for edgy Looney Tunes antics folks, now updated for audiences in 2016/2017/2018 or whatever year this gets released in order to be as gratingly a product of its era just as Space Jam now serves as a horrifying time capsule as to what was considered "cool" pop culture in the 1990's! Can't wait to see Lola Bunny twerking (though that probably already exists in some corner of DeviantArt), Elmer Fudd SnapChatting and Porky Pig and Daffy engaging in a lip-sync battle. IT'S GONNA BE GREAT!