In 1996, the Looney Tunes starred alongside legendary basketball player Michael Jordan in “Space Jam”. The Looney Tunes had previously appeared with Jordan in a series of commercials for Nike but now, they were in a big movie together. While “Space Jam” got poor reviews from critics, it made a lot of money and is often fondly remembered by people that were kids back in the 90s.
In 2021, “Space Jam: A New Legacy” was released. It’s very similar in concept to the original movie with the Looney Tunes having to join forces with a real basketball star (this time it’s LeBron James instead of Jordan) to compete in a basketball game against monsters. However, many other proposed “Space Jam” sequels never happened in the years since the original’s release.
A lot of the sequels that never got made were also meant to be focused on sports. “Golf Jam” with Tiger Woods and “Skate Jam” with Tony Hawk were apparently on the table. Not all suggestions involved sports. At one point, we were going to get “Spy Jam” with martial arts star Jackie Chan, who had finally become popular in the United States after “Rush Hour”.
Eventually, we did get another big screen “Looney Tunes” film with “Looney Tunes: Back In Action”. The movie had almost no relation to “Space Jam”. It starred Brendan Fraser (“The Mummy”) and Steve Martin (“The Jerk”) with Joe Dante (“Gremlins”) in the director’s chair. It got decent reviews but it didn’t do so well at the box-office.
While some maybe happy with the new “Space Jam” sequel, others may feel that some of the various sequels that never got made may have been more interesting than what we finally got.