Here come the Men in Black (again).
In an interview with ‘The Hollywood Reporter’, producers Walter Parkes and Laurie MacDonald have revealed that Sony plan to revive the MEN IN BLACK franchise.
Directed by Barry Sonnenfeld and starring Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones, the original MEN IN BLACKÂ trilogy earned over $1 billion worldwide and was completed over 15 years.
Parkes referred to the revival being in ‘very active’ development, with MacDonald adding the franchise would be ‘reinvented as a trilogy.’
The project is believed to be going ahead without the involvement of Smith or Jones. A fourth movie was rumoured in 2013, which either fell through or was the product of a game of ‘Chinese Whispers.’ The Sony hacks revealed that ‘Men in Black on 23 Jump Street: ‘Cos Why the Hell Not’ was mentioned in the same game.
MEN IN BLACKÂ is based on the comic book miniseries of the same name by Lowell Cunningham and Sandy Carruthers, originally published in 1990.
Despite its source material, the movies were not ‘page by page’ adaptations, only adopting the series’ basic premise. There are several key differences between the comics and the big screen trilogy:
• The darkness and bleakness of the comics was replaced with humour and a lightened tone.
• The secret organisation of the movies dealt exclusively with extra-terrestrial affairs, leaving the: demons, zombies and mythical creatures featured in the source material to other franchises.
• The mind-wiping neuraliser in the movies was used as a kid-friendly alternative to having agents J and K kill every conspiracy theorist who mistook a hot air balloon for a UFO.
• In the movies, the secret organisation were ‘all round good eggs’ and in the comics they wanted nothing less than world domination. Go figure.
Over the course of the trilogy, the MEN IN BLACK faced: a ‘Bug’ problem that Raid just wouldn’t solve, an evil alien queen disguised as a model, and maniacal extra-terrestrial biker.
Sony are yet to reveal any further details about casting or release dates for the revival.
