After toying with the idea of a Jump Street crossover, Sony Pictures announced back in October of last year that it has decided instead to reboot the Men in Black franchise with a new spinoff film from screenwriters Matt Holloway and Art Marcus (Iron Man, Transformers: The Last Knight).
The as-yet-untitled film was given a May 17th 2019 release date, but the studio has now announced that it has been pushed back a month and will open on June 14th. That takes it out of the way of John Wick: Chapter 3, and has it opening alongside Tim Story’s Shaft reboot, and a week after 20th Century Fox’s planned X-Men spinoff Gambit.
Based on the comic book series of the same name, Men in Black first hit the big screen in 1997, with Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones starring as J and K, two agents charged with regulating alien activity on Earth. It was followed by sequels in 2002 and 2012, with the three movies grossing $1.66 billion between them.
The spinoff is not expected to feature appearances from Smith and/or Jones, but will “acknowledge and build on the world they inhabited” albeit with new characters and a more global scale than the first three movies.
Originally published January 21, 2018. Updated April 15, 2018.
