Oh, those hacked Sony emails are the gift that keeps on giving. Whether it's revealing James Franco's salary or showing just how much of an ass-hat producer Scott Rudin really is, all of the skeletons rattling around in Sony's closet are being spilled out for the public. The latest nugget to emerge from all this? Sony is planning to crossover 23 Jump Street with Men in Black because why the f**k not?
Sounds crazy, right? Well, not if you're a studio that sees a way to jumpstart one flagging franchise with help from a popular one. Jonah Hill reached out to Sony chief Amy Pascal with the idea saying “jump street merging with mib i think that’s clean and rad and powerful.” Yes, "rad and powerful" is all it takes to get movies made at Sony nowadays. Kind of explains the Amazing Spider-Man franchise, doesn't it? Anyway, Pascal took to it and is so excited the film is now high on the studio pecking order, even though it isn't likely Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones will feature prominently. Two years have passed since the $620M-grossing Men in Black 3, and while that sounds like a success Sony claims otherwise. Here's what one exec told Steven Spielberg while trying to bring him around on the whole crossover idea...
“We didn’t do as well as we had hoped for on the last MIB film, but that hasn’t caused us to lose faith in the franchise. In reality, the exact opposite has occurred where we all have an opportunity to take an interim step on the way to hopefully forging ahead again in the pure-play MIB universe.”
How would this whole thing work, anyway? The two franchises don't naturally go together under normal circumstances, but the sequel-hopping closing credits of 22 Jump Street may be a clue of Hill and writer Rodney Rothman's plan. The hope is to have 23 Jump Street ready by 2016 or 2017, with Phil Lord and Chris Miller back to produce and possibly direct. [WSJ]
