Paramount announced on Wednesday evening that it will be reviving the MTV reality series “Jackass” for a new feature film slated for release on March 5, 2021.
Beyond the title and release date, no other details on the film were given by the studio, including whether the show’s original cast would be involved. Created by Johnny Knoxville, Jeff Tremaine and Spike Jonze, “Jackass” originally aired on MTV from 2000-2002 and spawned a trilogy of films released in 2003, 2006 and 2010 that were all produced at budgets of under $20 million and combined to gross $335 million at the global box office.
If the new project were to involve the original cast, it would be their first collaboration since the death of cast member Ryan Dunn in a car crash in 2011. Knoxville appeared in a 2013 spinoff film titled “Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa,” but the brand has not been used since. In 2018, Knoxville starred in a “Jackass”-inspired film called “Action Point” with co-star Chris Pontius which bombed at the box office with just $5.1 million grossed against a $19 million budget.
Since Dunn’s death, “Jackass” cast members have been asked repeatedly about whether they would return for a fourth film. In an interview with Loudwire this past July, Steve “Steve-O” Glover said he believed the project would come down to whether Knoxville, Tremaine and Jonze were interested in doing it, as well as whether everyone in the cast would be healthy enough to take part.
“We’re approaching the 20th anniversary of when ‘Jackass’ first appeared on MTV, and I do know that there’s an urge, an idea to commemorate that anniversary in some way,” he said.