MIB 23’ Director James Bobin Discusses Tonal Challenge of Combining Franchises

 

The feature film crossover of the 21 Jump Street and Men in Black franchises is a real thing. The project was first revealed when studio e-mails hit the web following the Sony hack, since then the studio has moved forward with development, announcing the official existence of the crossover at CinemaCon this year under the title MIB 23, with Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill in the lead roles.

Now MIB 23 finally has a director with director James Bobin preparing to shoot the film this fall. In addition, while promoting Disney’s aforementioned fantasy sequel, Bobin addressed the challenge of combining these two unique franchises, specifically with regards to the tone. Learn what the MIB 23 director had to say on the matter after the jump.
He said “The challenge is a tonal challenge. It really is. Because both worlds are so fantastic, and then it’s one of those things where you think, ‘How is this possibly going to work?’ And then you read the script and go, ‘I get it! This is amazing!’ It’s fantastic and it’s really fun. In a way I’m trying to imagine neither of those things exist before, and then what would it be together., and that ends with a very interesting place to be. But I love both worlds very much, and Jonah and Channing are hilarious, so they’ll be just, you know!”
MIB 23 is being written by Rodney Rothman, the scribe behind 22 Jump Street and considering that the sequel was one of the better comedy follow-ups, nearly as good as 21 Jump Street, my hopes are that he does a good job bringing these two franchises together.