Somehow, someway, a possibility existed that Sony could crossover two of its biggest film franchises, “21 Jump Street” and “Men in Black,” for a comedy that, honestly, sounds too silly to be real. And in a podcast this week, the series writers Phil Lord and Chris Miller explained just how close it came to being made.
“There was a ‘Men in Black’/’Jump Street’ crossover script that was very funny and very crazy, that we really adored,” Miller told Josh Horowitz on the Happy Sad Confused podcast.
“I will say, it came very close to happening,” Lord added.
Miller explained the idea was that Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum’s “Jump Street” characters would be in the midst of a medical school undercover adventure when they stumbled into the world of “Men in Black” and teamed up to stop an “alien takeover type of thing.” They even had a gag in which new members of the MIB don’t actually start with black suits but must graduate into them the way you would a martial arts belt, so the script called for our heroes to be issued “powder blue” suits, Lord joked.
“It was very funny, very crazy, trying to manage these two franchises and not drive them both into the ground seemed like a real challenge,” Miller added.
To show just how close the “MIB/Jump Street” crossover was, “Muppets” filmmaker James Bobin was in talks to direct and a working title of title, “MIB 23” was set, which would’ve nicely followed up with 2014’s “22 Jump Street.” Audiences became excited at the idea that rather than lampoon the idea of endless sequels and cash grab reboots, “Jump Street” could now send up the idea of the shared universe trend that has become commonplace ever since the MCU.
But while that film may have died out, Lord and Miller did tease that “Jump Street” may be revived yet again, saying that another film is “softly” being developed — or, more accurately, that “it’s not not being developed.”
Listen to the full Happy Sad Confused podcast via Patreon here, and check out a clip via Josh Horowitz on Twitter below: