SPACE JAM Director Says The Sequel is "Doomed"

Last week when I wrote about the how Fast & Furious director Justin Lin is going to direct a Space Jam sequel that will probably star LeBron James, I talked about how the first movie is...to put it nicely, not very good. Yes, '90s kids love it for nostalgic reasons, but have you rewatched it recently? It does not hold up AT ALL.

In any case, the first film's director, Joe Pytka, has some advice for Lin and James:

"Don't do it. It's doomed. Michael Jordan was the biggest star on the planet."

What he's getting at is that LeBron has been eclipsed this year by the Golden State Warriors' Steph Curry, who recently won the NBA's MVP award by unanimous vote for the first time in history (not even Jordan accomplished that feat). Pytka's implying that by the time Space Jam 2 actually hits theaters, LeBron might not be the mega-star that he is right now.

"When we did Space Jam, there was a perfect storm of players and ex-players available — Larry Bird, Charles Barkley, Patrick Ewing," says Pytka. "They all had a persona that complemented the film. There are none around like that now."

Look, I'm not interested in seeing Space Jam 2, but whether LeBron is the best current player in basketball at the moment is not the deciding factor of if this movie gets made. He's a huge superstar, has a hell of a lot better comedic timing than Jordan ever did (see: Trainwreck), and is one of the world's most successful athletes. I think people will still know who he is in two years. There are plenty of reasons not to make this movie, but LeBron's perceived lack of star power is not one of them. And those other guys he mentioned? They were great athletes in their own right, but they certainly weren't actors, and I think there are a crop of guys who are in the league now who grew up with new media, cell phone video cameras, and YouTube that have cultivated much better chances for being able to succeed in supporting roles than those old guys did back in the '90s.