When it comes to crossovers, there have been some pretty wild suggestions made over the years and some have even managed to make it into production, but it seems that one that got away would have seen a meeting of the 21 Jump Street and Men in Black franchises. Phil Lord and Christopher Miller have worked together on The LEGO Movie and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, as well as the two big screen Jump Street movies, and while appearing on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, the pair revealed their one-time plans to create a crossover of their franchise and Sony’s Men in Black.
“It’s true that there have been a lot of these things developed,” Lord said. “There was, believe it or not, a Men in Black/Jump Street crossover script that was very funny and very crazy that we really adored.”
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Miller added, “One of my favorite ideas was the Men in Black, the Black Suits were like martial arts belts that you had to work your way up to black and [the Jump Street guys] were issued powered blue Men in Black suits.”
According to the pair, the film would have starred both Jump Street stars Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum, and would have seen them becoming embroiled in a conspiracy that would lead them directly to the secretive MIB organization.
Lord went on, “Basically, the idea was Jonah and Channing, a thing happened while they were doing their medical school adventure that got them embroiled into the world of Men in Black and that got them teaming up to stop an alien takeover type of thing. It was very funny, it was crazy trying to manage these two franchises and not drive them both into the ground seemed like a real challenge.”
Jump Street’s Men In Black Crossover May Not Be Happening, But Crossovers Are A Big Thing For The Future
The proposed crossover between Jump Street and Men in Black was officially scrapped in 2019 after it was decided by many involved that the idea was an “impossible match-up.” However, there have been many such seemingly unconnected franchises brought together in comic book form and in many fan fiction pieces, so there is no reason why the idea might not have worked.
Although there are currently “soft” plans being discussed for the future of the Jump Street franchise, which includes a female-led spinoff that Miller said is “not not being developed,” in the current cinematic climate, it has to be acknowledged that crossovers and multiverses are all the rage and a fun mash-up of random franchises could be big business.
Marvel and DC are both heavily investing in the multiverse, with Spider-Man: No Way Home having proved that crossovers are a very good thing when done right and DC looking for similar success with The Flash’s universe breaking arrival at the end of the year. Over the last decades, crossovers of much-loved franchises and characters have always been a big crowd pleaser, whether in an all out movie such as Freddy vs Jason or Godzilla vs Kong, or just a simple cameo appearance, such as the brilliant moment Back to the Future’s Doc Brown made a cameo in Seth MacFarlane’s A Million Ways to Die in the West. Whether a Jump Street/MIB combination could have found a way to work is something we will never know, but it could have been fun finding out.
