LeBron James Recruits Black Panther Director Ryan Coogler For Space Jam Sequel

LeBron James Recruits Ryan Coogler For Space Jam Reboot

Los Angeles Lakers star, LeBron James has enlisted box-office-recorder-breaker, Ryan Coogler to produce the forever rumored Space Jam reboot. The Warner Bros. film, which is set to begin production in 2019, will be Coogler’s follow up project since the premiere of Black Panther in February 2018. With the Fruitvale Station director on production, Terence Nance, who created HBO’s Random Acts of Flyness, will be the director.

LeBron James

James spoke about working with Coogler; sharing how he adored the director’s vision for Black Panther and how black superheroes translated to inspiration for children,

The Space Jam collaboration is so much more than just me and the Looney Tunes getting together and doing this movie. It’s so much bigger. I’d just love for kids to understand how empowered they can feel and how empowered they can be if they don’t just give up on their dreams. And I think Ryan did that for a lot of people.

The official Twitter of SpringHill Entertainment, James’ entertainment company, announced the news on Wednesday with a photo of a cartoon locker room with the James, Coogler, Nance, and Bugs Bunny names ingrained.

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— SpringHill (@makespringhill) September 19, 2018

In addition to the original 1996 film being directed by Joe Pytka and starring basketball legend, Michael Jordan, the film still holds the record of being the highest grossing basketball film of all time – earning a documented $230 million worldwide.

With a sequel confirmed, it has not been assured if Jordan will be making a cameo for the new film, but James is set to star. His role in the basketball comedy will be a follow up to his supporting/debut role in Amy Schumer‘s comedy Trainwreck. And given James’ reputation among the league, we can expect the NBA champion to include a plethora of our favorite players throughout the league, much like the original.

Ryan Coogler

This enlistment comes after James announcing two other new shows under his SpringHill Entertainment umbrella with the CW and NBC, which he will produce. Coogler became the first black director to gross a $1.34 billion film worldwide with Black Panther, and the superhero film also became the world’s ninth highest grossing film of all time.

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