Obviously this is all Ryan Coogler’s fault: Although the project has cycled its way through a healthy chunk of Hollywood talent—Justin Lin was attached to direct it at one point or another, before escaping to Aquaman land—Coogler took on the film’s producing duties last year. Once attached, he helped to select Terence Nance, from HBO’s Random Acts Of Flyness, as its actual director.
Meanwhile, this will be James’ first leading film role, after an encouraging turn in 2015's Amy Schumer comedy Trainwreck. He’s been an enthusiastic pursuer of this project for years, though, presumably because it’ll finally give him and Michael Jordan something to talk about if they ever get trapped in an elevator together at some hall of fame ceremony or other. “Bugs is nice, huh?” James will ask in our imaginations, breaking the awkward silence slowly coalescing between the two superstars. “Mmm,” Jordan will respond, checking his phone to see if he’s getting any signal yet. “Didn’t care for Daffy, though,” James adds. Jordan’s eyes light up. “Oh, fuck Daffy,” he’ll respond, and the two respective legends will finally be best friends.
(Warner Bros.: Please consider this our pitch for a spec script for the obviously inevitable Space Jam 3.)
Anyway, the film’s Summer 2021 scheduling is just one of a handful of adjustments Warner Bros. made to its film calendar this evening; the studio also bumped up Godzilla Vs. Kong a few weeks, to March 13, 2020—because not even kaiju want to have to face off against Fast And Furious 9—and pushed up the third Annabelle movie by a week.
