New 'Space Jam' Movie Will Dive Into Other Warner Bros. Films Including 'The Matrix' and 'Wonder Woman'

Space Jam: A New Legacy is set to hit theaters and HBO Max on July 16

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Published on March 5, 2021 01:23 PM

Bugs Bunny, Wonder Woman and LeBron James? Oh my!

The upcoming Space Jam sequel — titled Space Jam: A New Legacy — will incorporate other Warner Bros. properties, including Mad Max and Casablanca, according to Entertainment Weekly.

In an interview with the publication, Space Jam: A New Legacy producer Ryan Coogler spoke about getting to play around with the different films under the media conglomerate's ownership.

"Obviously the Looney Tunes come with the Space Jam property, but the idea of playing in the entire Warner Bros. sandbox was an idea that came from [co-writer] Terence Nance," said Coogler, 34. "And that was a really unique quality about some of the things that he wanted to explore in the script and that made a lot of sense in terms of how entertainment conglomerates are operating right now."

"A lot of times you have these companies trying to figure out how they can combine different properties and bringing them into one thing to up the ante for the audience," he added. "Our script takes a very macro look at that, but from a meta story perspective. LeBron kind of becomes a very meta cog in that machine."

Earlier this week, EW released a slew of first look images at the upcoming feature, which is due out in July.

Gracing the current issue of the popular entertainment magazine is Space Jam: A New Legacy star James, 36, who is taking over for Michael Jordan.

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The original 1996 animated and live-action movie follows Jordan, 58, as he helps the Looney Tunes win a basketball game against a group of alien bullies.

In Space Jam: A New Legacy, James' onscreen son Dom's tech skills get him and the athlete sucked into an entertainment server by a CGI humanoid, who wants to steal some of James' social media followers. To escape from the virtual world in which they're trapped, James gathers the Looney Tunes for — what else? A basketball game.

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In the forthcoming film, EW noted that James will travel through an array of some of the most recognizable flicks from Warner Bros. to track down the Looney Tunes and "a banished" Bugs Bunny.

"You can look at the WB catalog and just see how many things they have in the archives," James detailed. "And for me to be able to travel through and be part of Wonder Woman, Casablanca, The Matrix, it was incredible."

"We were able to dive into some of those worlds, along with some other ones that … I gave you a couple, but I want to save some for the film," he continued. "I couldn't believe it, to see some of the live footage that we were able to shoot, along with some of the digital and animation stuff to just bring it all together."

Director Malcolm D. Lee also spoke with the outlet and said that it "was a tricky thing" to select the other Warner Bros. films. "But in picking the titles, is it going to be funny? That's always the balance," he said.

Space Jam: A New Legacy is set to hit theaters and HBO Max on July 16, HBO announced last month.