This July, after years of speculation, LeBron James will be teaming up with the Looney Tunes in Space Jam: A New Legacy. This new film comes 25 years after the original Space Jam, which starred Michael Jordan. James was first approached 15 years ago with a chance to star, but he passed on the original offer because he felt he was not ready to do anything of that magnitude. Now, after 18 years in the league and a resume that can only be rivaled by Jordan himself, James will lead the Tune Squad, consisting of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Lola Bunny, Tweety Bird, and many more classic Looney Tunes characters.
Filmed throughout the past two NBA offseasons, Space Jam: A New Legacy follows James and his son as they are sucked into the Warner 3000 Entertainment Server-verse. From there, James must face off against a CGI humanoid named AI G Rhythm (played by Don Cheadle), who kidnaps his son and challenges him to a basketball game. In order to save his son and escape the virtual reality, James must round up the Looney Tunes and bring the Tune Squad back together once again. Much like its predecessor, Space Jam: A New Legacy will feature cameos from other basketball players, such as Anthony Davis, Damian Lillard, Chris Paul, Klay Thompson, Draymond Green, and more.
Space Jam: A New Legacy will see James interacting with not only Looney Tunes characters, but with characters from other Warner Bros films. As he travels through the Warner Bros servers, James will encounter characters from titles like Casablanca, Mad Max, The Matrix, and more. Producer Ryan Coogler, who has worked on Black Panther and Creed, explained, “Obviously the Looney Tunes come with the Space Jam property, but the idea of playing in the entire Warner Bros sandbox was an idea that came from co-writer Terrence Nance. And that was a really unique quality about some of the things that he wanted to explore in the script and that made a lot of sense in terms of how entertainment conglomerates are operating right now. A lot of times you have these companies trying to figure out how they can combine different properties and bringing them into one thing to up the ante for the audience. Our script takes a very macro look at that, but from a meta story perspective. LeBron kind of becomes a very meta cog in that machine.”
At 11 years old when the original Space Jam was released, James grew up with the film, and it has become a staple for many other sports lovers around that age. Now, James hopes that this new film will have as big of an impact on today’s generation as its predecessor did on him. James proudly stated, “I will make sure all our kids get an opportunity to screen this movie. I think that’s going to be something that I will remember for the rest of my life, just being there with my I Promise kids, either at our school, or at a local movie theater, where we can bring all our kids, all their families. It’s going to be something special.”
Media by Cole Simpson.
