Channing Tatum still thinks that a crossover between 21 Jump Street and Men in Black could work. A reboot of the 1980s television show of the same name, 21 Jump Street starring Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum was a critical and box office success, grossing $201 million worldwide that led to an equally successful sequel in 2014 titled 22 Jump Street. While the sequel ended with a series of joke trailers for upcoming Jump Street sequels, one was actually planned titled MIB 23 and would have seen the characters crossover into the Men in Black franchise.
Based on the Malibu comic of the same name, Men in Black was released in 1997 and starred Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones as secret agents who monitor extraterrestrial threats. The film was a box office smash upon release and was the second highest-grossing film of 1997, only behind Titanic. The 2002 sequel, Men in Black 2, received mixed reviews and grossed less than the first film. 2012, the year 21 Jump Street was released, also saw the release of Men in Black 3, which appeared to be the last film for Smith and Jones. The plan was then to crossover Men in Black with 21 Jump Street with The Muppets filmmaker James Bobin signed on to helm the film, yet the project eventually fell through.
Tatum told Collider that he was blown away by the script for MIB 23 and that it was one of the funniest scripts he’s read. He said that he still thinks it could work but acknowledges the issues getting the film made, including getting the various producers to sign on. Tatum says a lot of producers’ contracts would need to be renegotiated. Read his full quote below:
“I still think it could work, I really do. And if Sony would ever really, like, I think do the hard work and figure out the producer problems that are inherent with that film, I think we can still do it. But right now, I don’t know why, they’re just not motivated to do it. It’s a big overhead on that movie, so…There’s [Steven] Spielberg, Neil Moritz, and Walter Parks. They’re giant producers, y’know, on that. And then once everybody is kinda like, not willing to come off their fee, you end up having a producer fee that is essentially, maybe more than the actual budget on the movie.”
It was reported in 2019 the film was stopped by 21 Jump Street producer Neil Moritz, who refused to take a pay cut to get the project off the ground. Since the project fell through, both franchises have been at a bit of a standstill. A female-centric spin-off of 21 Jump Street titled Jump Street: Now for Her Pleasure is in development. Sony rebooted the Men in Black franchise in 2019 with Thor: Ragnarok stars, Chris Hemsworth and Tessa Thompson, in Men in Black: International, yet the film was a box office bomb and was disliked by critics, once again leaving the franchise’s future up in the air.
While the fate of both franchises is up in the air, it is still possible the 21 Jump Street and Men in Black crossover could happen one day. Both Freddy vs. Jason and Alien vs. Predator were two long in-development crossover projects that also took years to work out contracts between various producers. 21 Jump Street directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller recently revealed how close the film came to happening and teased the movie’s plot. With how much success Sony has had with Spider-Man: No Way Home, a film that also reused concepts the studio had back in 2014 to crossover Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield’s Spider-Man franchises, it is entirely likely they have not shut the door on MIB 23.
