Men in Black Spin-Off Gets Writers, Release Date!

According to DeadlineSony Pictures is in development on a new Men in Black spin-off which will not feature Will Smith or Tommy Lee Jones, but will expand on the world of the original trilogy. This will be a different project from the aborted 21 Jump Street franchise mashup, MIB 23, which Jonah Hill admitted last year was “too complicated” in terms of the deals needed. That film remains in development, however.

RELATED: MIB 23 Unlikely to Happen, Says Jonah Hill

The new untitled Men in Black film has been written by Matt Holloway & Art Marcum (Iron Man, Transformers: The Last Knight), with Sony setting aside a May 17, 2019 release date slot. That date positions it against another big sequel, Keanu Reeves’ John Wick: Chapter Three. Series producers Walter F. Parkes and Laurie MacDonald and executive producer Steven Spielberg will shepherd the film, which is currently out to top directors. The scope of the film is said to be more global than the previous three, with Jurassic World being a comparison point of rebooting while remaining in the world of the other movies.

“It’s so rare to get to the end of the script and know you’re holding a movie in your hands,” said Parks. “Art and Matt have written a spinoff that somehow is true to the core of the MIB world, and yet expands the franchise to a fresh new place.”

The original Men in Black, starring the winning combo of Smith and Jones, came out twenty years ago in the summer of 1997, and grossed $589 million worldwide. Its 2002 sequel, Men in Black II, grossed $441 million worldwide and was less enthusiastically received by critics and audiences alike, while the 2012 threequel MIB 3 took the series back on course creatively and earned $642 million worldwide, despite a troubled filming process. Barry Sonnenfeld directed all three original pictures.

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