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Space Jam is a 1996 American live-action animated sports comedy film directed by Joe Pytka and written by Leo Benvenuti, Steve Rudnick, Timothy Harris, and Herschel Weingrod. The first film produced by Warner Bros. Feature Animation, it stars basketball player Michael Jordan as himself; the live-action cast also includes Wayne Knight and Theresa Randle while Billy West and Danny DeVito headline the voice cast. The film follows Jordan as he is brought out of retirement by the Looney Tunes characters to help them win a basketball match against invading aliens intent on enslaving them as amusement park attractions.
Space Jam premiered in Los Angeles on November 10, 1996, and was released theatrically in the United States on November 15, by Warner Bros. under its Family Entertainment label. The film received mixed reviews from critics, who were divided over its premise of combining Jordan and his profession with the Looney Tunes characters, while the technical achievements of its intertwining of live-action and animation were praised. It was a commercial success, grossing $250.2 million worldwide against a $80 million budget, becoming the highest-grossing basketball film of all time until 2022, and the tenth-highest-grossing film of 1996.
A standalone sequel, , was released in 2021, with LeBron James in the lead role. The sequel received generally negative reviews and failed to match the commercial success of the first film.
In outer space, amusement park Moron Mountain is in decline. Its proprietor, Mr. Swackhammer, learns of the Looney Tunes from the Nerdlucks, his quintet of alien minions, and orders them to abduct the Tunes to serve as attractions. The Nerdlucks enter the Tunes' universe via a portal hidden in the center of the Earth and hold them hostage before Bugs Bunny convinces them to allow the Tunes to defend themselves. The Tunes take advantage of the Nerdlucks' small stature and challenge them to a basketball game. After seeing a documentary about basketball, the Nerdlucks infiltrate various NBA games, stealing the talents of Charles Barkley, Shawn Bradley, Patrick Ewing, Larry Johnson, and Muggsy Bogues. They use these talents to transform into hulking and adept versions of themselves known as the "Monstars".
Deciding they need help, the Looney Tunes pull Jordan into their universe as he golfs with Bill Murray, Larry Bird, and Jordan's assistant, Stan Podolak, where Bugs explains their situation to Jordan. However, Jordan is initially reluctant to help, but later agrees after a confrontation with the Monstars, and forms the "Tune Squad” with the Tunes; they are joined by Lola Bunny, with whom Bugs is enamored. To prepare himself, Jordan sends Bugs and Daffy Duck to his house to obtain his basketball gear. Jordan's children aid them and agree to keep the game a secret, while Stan, searching for Jordan, notices Bugs and Daffy, follows them to their world, and joins the team. Meanwhile, the incapacity of the five players results in a nationwide panic that culminates in the season's suspension. The players unsuccessfully try to restore their skills through various methods.
The game between the Tune Squad and the Monstars commences, with Swackhammer arriving to observe. The Monstars dominate the first half, lowering the Tune Squad's morale. During halftime, Stan surreptitiously learns how the Monstars obtained their talent and informs the Tune Squad. Disguising a bottle of water as "secret stuff", Bugs and Jordan motivate the Tune Squad, who improve in the second half using their cartoon antics. During a time-out, Jordan raises the stakes with Swackhammer: if the Tune Squad wins, the Monstars must relinquish their stolen talent, and if the Monstars win, Jordan will spend the rest of his life being Moron Mountain's newest attraction. On Swackhammer's command, the Monstars play more aggressively, injuring most of the Tune Squad.
With only ten seconds left in the game, the Tune Squad is down by one point and one player, with only Jordan, Bugs, Lola, and Daffy still able to play. Murray unexpectedly arrives and joins the team. In the final seconds, Jordan gains the ball with Murray's assistance but is pulled back by the Monstars. On Bugs' advice, Jordan uses cartoon physics to extend his arm and achieve a slam dunk, winning the game with a buzzer beater. After Swackhammer scolds the Monstars for their failure, Jordan helps them realize that they only served him because they were once smaller. Having had enough of their boss's behavior towards them, the Monstars insert Swackhammer inside a missile that sends him to the moon. After relinquishing their stolen talent, the Nerdlucks decide to join the Tunes, while Jordan and Stan return to Earth and return the talent to the five players, whose remarks convince Jordan to return to the NBA.
Space Jams cast includes Manner Washington, Eric Gordon, and Penny Bae Bridges as Jordan's children, Jeffrey Jordan, Marcus Jordan, and Jasmine, respectively. Brandon Hammond plays the ten-year-old Michael Jordan. Larry Bird and Bill Murray appear as themselves, and Thom Barry portrays Jordan's father, James R. Jordan Sr. Several NBA players make cameo appearances in Space Jam, including Danny Ainge, Steve Kerr, Alonzo Mourning, Horace Grant, A.C. Green, Charles Oakley, Luc Longley, Cedric Ceballos, Derek Harper, Vlade Divac, Brian Shaw, Jeff Malone, Bill Wennington, Anthony Miller, and Sharone Wright, as do coaches Del Harris and Paul Westphal, and broadcasters Ahmad Rashad and Jim Rome. Dan Castellaneta and Patricia Heaton cameo as fans at a game between the New York Knicks and Phoenix Suns, as does Charles Hallahan as the Baron's Team Owner.
The Nerdluck voices include Jocelyn Blue as their orange leader, Pound, Charity James as the dim-witted blue Blanko, June Melby as the neurotic green second-in-command Bang, Colleen Wainwright as the diminutive red Nawt, and producer Ivan Reitman's daughter, Catherine, as the eccentric purple Bupkus. Their transformed "Monstar" versions are voiced by Darnell Suttles (Pound), Steve Kehela (Blanko), Joey Camen (Bang), Dorian Harewood (Bupkus), and T.K. Carter (Nawt). Wainwright also voices Sniffles, Kehela also voices Bertie's announcer voice, and Frank Welker voices Jordan's bulldog, Charles.
The project was closed when Jordan retired from basketball in 1993, only to be reopened in 1995 when Jordan returned as a basketball player. Falk pitched the idea to several major studios, without a story or script written. One of them was Warner Bros., which tried to create more "adult, sophisticated material" that deviated from the formula set by Disney in the animated film market. After Warner Bros. initially rejected Falk's pitch, he called the consumer products division leader, Dan Romanelli, reacting in surprise the studio would turn down a project having potential of high-selling merchandise.
Pytka was informed about the project only months before the start of principal photography; in addition to being hired as director, he also revised the script, including writing a scene where Jordan hits a home run after he returns to Earth that was filmed, but ultimately never used. Spike Lee was also interested in helping Pytka with the screenplay, but Warner Bros. blocked him from the project out of dissatisfaction from how he funded Malcolm X (1992).
The easiest actors to obtain were the NBA players, except for Gheorghe Mureșan. Bill Murray's appearance was present in the script from the beginning, but the filmmakers were unable to book him until filming started; Murray held out until Jordan personally asked him to be in the film. Bill Murray Says He Made Michael Jordan Personally Ask Him to Be in “Space Jam”
Reitman, serious about the voice actors for the established Looney Tunes characters being far better than their original voice actor, Mel Blanc, and not just replications, was very involved in the voice casting. Joe Alaskey, one of Blanc's successors since the latter's death, was put by Reitman through a set of auditions, which lasted for months until Alaskey grew tired of auditioning and backed out from the project. Billy West learned of Space Jam through Reitman on The Howard Stern Show, who was producing Stern's film Private Parts (1997). Reitman was impressed by West's voice talent and asked him if he could audition for Space Jam. West accepted, and after doing an audition, he landed the roles of Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd. The casting directors originally planned several voice cameos; however, that did not work out, and Danny DeVito ended up being the only celebrity voice actor in the film, which was for Mr. Swackhammer, who was originally planned to be played by Jack Palance. Swackhammer was also planned to be a live-action character until the very final days of development, with Dennis Hopper possibly playing the role due to his friendship with Pytka.
After Cervone was hired as animation director, Jerry Rees contacted Bruce W. Smith about being another animation director on the film; Rees was fired by the time Smith joined, and Pytka hired Smith to direct the animation sequences alongside Cervone. Before January 1996, when animation production was put into overdrive, none of the animators' drafts or concepts for how the film should look met with Reitman's approval; Bill Perkins joined that month as animation art director, and when first arriving at the Sherman Oaks division, "we only had around eight months to do about 52 minutes of animation" and "it was just kind of a little skeleton crew." Cervone highlighted Reitman's role as supervisor: "It started off as a string of gags with no structure, and he helped a lot with that." The drafting process involved the animators and artists using the original cartoons as references. Ultimately, they went with Bob Clampett's style of animation due to being wilder than Chuck Jones' style.
Production of Space Jam totaled around 19 months, with filming taking up ten of them; this was half the time of any other film of its kind according to Smith. The animation was done at a very quick pace by more than 700 workers from 18 studios in London, Canada, California and Ohio, starting January 1996 by the recently joined producers Ron Tippe and Allison Abbate. In trying to track the huge amount work done at the 18 studios, Tippe hung stills of all the shots throughout the Feature Animation faction's hallways, with completed ones marked in red.
Features about the film's production, including one from the official website, emphasized its state-of-the art computer technology when it came to its live-action/animation hybrid; "this film could have not been made two years ago," claimed Cervone in 1996. Due to its mixture of various art mediums as well as the "broad sense of humor and entertainment" unique to the Looney Tunes, Smith considered Space Jam an important part of diversifying the animation industry. Space Jam broke the record for amount of composited shots in a featured film, "roughly 1,043" according to Tippe, as well as a record number of FX shots, with around 1,100 in a single 90-minute film; Independence Day (1996), released the same year, had 700 FX shots within two hours of screen time. Tippe claimed the film would have, at most, "multiple characters, multiple levels of effects and, in some cases, up to 70 elements" in one shot.
Concept drawings and discussions between the animators and Pytka about how the animation would be incorporated into the live-action shots took place on set during shooting, and re-writes to the script would be done daily. As an experienced commercial and music video director working on a sports film, Pytka took on fast, unlimited camera movements and ; this made integrating the characters into the shots challenging for the animators. To connect the real and animated worlds together, blue-screen shots of miniatures by Vision Crew Unlimited were used; these include a Christo-inspired interpretation of The Forum arena for exterior shots, city rooftops for a transition scene with a wide skyline view of Chicago serving as the chroma-keyed background, and space ship parts initially produced by Boss Film Studios for a Philip Morris advertisement.
Cinesite had begun developing proprietary software for motion tracking when working on (1995), which involved most of its shots incorporating a digital background; this made the company prepared for Space Jam, which consists of a bunch of moving camera shots with 3D backgrounds to be added. The CGI backgrounds moved around with the motion trackers via Cinesite's proprietary software Ball Buster, which identified the markers through algorithm. To avoid mistakes in the visuals as much as possible, Cinesite artists worked on the film by frame instead of viewing each shot as a whole; those, such as Jonathan Privett were dissatisfied with the method, primarily because it put them under much pressure: "We much preferred the good old fashioned run-at-24-fps, just-as-the-viewer-sees-it approach."
For scenes that take place in the stadium, shortcuts were made. For of the crowd of 15,000 people in the final basketball sequence, it was created with live-action extras, cloned animated crowd members, and a few computer-generated characters walking around the aisles in the stadium. When these shots involved camera movements, a few 2D extras were animated to reflect the angle of the camera, but much lighting was added to distract from the crowd, thus minimizing this work. The reflections of the floor on the gym were also "faked" as raytracing would've meant rendering it for four days per a few frames.
Although the animators had to work with almost 100 characters, they were the most focused on Bugs and Daffy not only because they were principal characters, but also because they were the most recognizable Warner Bros. characters to general audiences. Sculpting was incorporated the most on Bugs and Lola, including in "beauty shots" or sequences where Bugs and Lola are together. Perkins conceived the idea of the villains being secondary colors, as the main Looney Tunes were either primary colors, black, or brown.
There was extensive experimentation with motion blur with the 2D characters, particularly Tweety; as Simon Eves explained, "The workflow was that an artist would track some specific points on the sequence of 2D character-on-black that came from the animation house, and I think it was able to take a basic roto shape as well, and then it would generate an interpolated motion vector field which could be applied as a variable directional blur. The field would deform based on the relative motion of the tracking points on the camera, to produce more accurate blur as the character deformed."
On November 6, 2007, Space Jam was featured as one of four films in Warner Home Video's 4-Film Favorites: Family Comedies collection DVD (the other three being —which was released seven years after Space Jam— Osmosis Jones and Funky Monkey). On February 8, 2011, the first disc of the previous 2-disc edition was released by itself in a film-only edition DVD and on October 4, the film was released for the first time in widescreen HD on Blu-ray which, save for the Looney Tunes shorts, ported over all the extras from the 2003 2-disc edition DVD.
A double DVD release, paired with Looney Tunes: Back in Action, was released on June 7, 2016. On November 15, 2016, Warner Bros. released another Space Jam Blu-ray to commemorate the film's 20th anniversary.
On July 6, 2021, the film arrived on Ultra HD Blu-ray to celebrate the 25th anniversary and the release of .
The film was adapted into a graphic novel published by DC Comics through their imprint "Warner Bros. Family Entertainment Reading" that published the "Looney Tunes", "Tiny Toon Adventures", "Animaniacs" and "Pinky & The Brain" monthly comic books. The special issue was written by David Cody Weiss and drawn by Leonardo Batic.
A licensed pinball game by Sega, a video game for the PlayStation, Sega Saturn and MS-DOS by Acclaim, and a handheld LCD game by Tiger Electronics were released based on the film.
Domestically, it debuted to $27.5 million from 2,650 theaters, topping the box office. The film then made $16.2 million in its sophomore weekend but it dropped to second place behind and $13.6 million in its third place behind Star Trek: First Contact and 101 Dalmatians.
In China, the film was released in 1997 and grossed .
Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel of the Chicago Sun-Times and Chicago Tribune both gave Space Jam a thumbs up, although Siskel's praise was more reserved. In his review, Ebert gave the film three-and a-half stars and noted, " Space Jam is a happy marriage of good ideas—three films for the price of one, giving us a comic treatment of the career adventures of Michael Jordan, crossed with a Looney Tunes cartoon and some showbiz warfare. ... the result is delightful, a family movie in the best sense (which means the adults will enjoy it, too)." Siskel focused much of his praise on Jordan's performance, saying, "He wisely accepted as a first movie a script that builds nicely on his genial personality in an assortment of TV ads. The sound bites are just a little longer." Leonard Maltin also gave the film a positive review (three stars), stating that "Jordan is very engaging, the vintage characters perform admirably ... and the computer-generated special effects are a collective knockout." Todd McCarthy of Variety praised the film for its humor as well as the Looney Tunes' antics and Jordan's acting.
Although Janet Maslin of The New York Times criticized the film's animation, she later went on to say that the film is a "fond tribute to the past." Michael Wilmington of the Chicago Tribune complained about some aspects of the movie, stating, "...we don't get the co-stars' best stuff. Michael doesn't soar enough. The Looney Tunes don't pulverize us the way they did when Chuck Jones, Friz Freleng or Bob Clampett were in charge." Yet overall, he also liked the film, giving it 3 stars and saying: "Is it cute? Yes. Is it a crowd-pleaser? Yup. Is it classic? Nope. (Though it could have been.)" TV Guide gave the movie only two stars, calling it a "cynical attempt to cash in on the popularity of Warner Bros. cartoon characters and basketball player Michael Jordan, inspired by a Nike commercial." Margaret A. McGurk of The Cincinnati Enquirer gave the film stars out of four writing, "Technical spectacle amounts to nothing without a good story."
According to author Kevin Sandler, critics disliked the film's representation of the Looney Tunes characters' personalities. Sandler stated, "This decontextualization has turned each character into a soulless, calculated, and crass commercial entity, a set of mannerisms and catchphrases without point or purpose. The comedy no longer springs from a conflict between opposing personalities; they are now all friends living in someplace called 'Looney Tune Land'. Instead, the comedy comes from the characters reprising old scenes out of context."Sandler, Kevin (1998). Reading the Rabbit: Explorations in Warner Bros. Animation, p. 14. Rutgers University Press. Pomerance, Murray (2001). Ladies and Gentlemen, Boys and Girls: Gender in Film at the End of the Twentieth Century, pp. 140–143. State University of New York Press. Veteran Looney Tunes director Chuck Jones was critical of the film and its premise, opining that Bugs Bunny would not have enlisted help from others in resolving a conflict, and that Porky Pig would never say, "I wet myself." During a dinner celebration with the animation staff of Space Jam and Warner Bros. executives, he was asked to deliver a congratulatory speech to the animators' work, but upon instead sharing his opinions on the film, was forcefully escorted off the lot by security. director Joe Dante disliked the film's representation of the Looney Tunes brand and the characters' personalities, and later developed Back in Action to more closely represent said personalities.
The film's official website, spacejam.com, was created in 1996 alongside promotion of the film, and remained unchanged but active for 25 years prior to the release of the film's sequel, an unusual aspect to film promotion websites. The site was one of the earliest film promotion websites, and included a number of unrefined web design facets, such as heavy use of . While the site's content had been moved under Warner Bros.'s site around 2003, the site's design gained a resurgence of interest around 2010 as an historical artifact of the early days of the web, and Warner Bros. returned the site to the spacejam.com address in response. Following the release of first trailer in April 2021, the website was updated for promotion of the new film, though the 1996 content remained available as a separate landing page.
A television film crossover with Teen Titans Go!, Teen Titans Go! See Space Jam, aired on Cartoon Network in June 2021. The film features the Teen Titans meeting the Nerdlucks and providing humorous commentary over the original film. The movie's length is slightly abridged, omitting the opening credits and several scenes that do not feature the Looney Tunes, and the soundtrack is replaced by an original score.
Several potential sequels, including Spy Jam with Jackie Chan that would end up becoming the basis for , Race Jam with Jeff Gordon, Golf Jam with Tiger Woods, and Skate Jam with Tony Hawk were all discussed but never came to be.
In February 2014, Warner Bros. officially announced development of a sequel that would star LeBron James. In July 2015, James and his film studio, SpringHill Entertainment, signed a deal with Warner Bros. for television, film and digital content after receiving positive reviews for his role in Trainwreck. By 2016, Justin Lin signed onto the project as director, and co-screenwriter with Andrew Dodge and Alfredo Botello. By August 2018, Lin left the project, and Terence Nance was hired to direct the film. In September 2018, Ryan Coogler was announced as a producer for the film. Filming would take place in California and within a Studio zone of Los Angeles. Prior to production, the film received $21.8 million in tax credits as a result of a new tax incentive program from the state.
In February 2019, after releasing the official logo with a promotional poster, Space Jam 2 was announced to be scheduled for release on July 16, 2021. Principal photography began on June 25, 2019. On July 16, 2019, it was announced Nance was leaving the project because he and "the studio/producers had different takes on the creative vision for Space Jam 2", and that Malcolm D. Lee would serve as his replacement. In May 2020, James officially revealed the title and logo of the film, as Space Jam: A New Legacy. On March 4, 2021, it was confirmed that the sequel would also feature various characters in the Warner Bros. film and television archive.
Jordan was reportedly set to make a cameo in A New Legacy, as the makers teased the fans in June 2021 that "Jordan will appear in the film, but not in the way you would expect it." In fact, as shown in the film, he appeared in various pictures from his career and the Space Jam film. In a scene, Sylvester claimed to have found Jordan, but he actually found actor Michael B. Jordan, who thus made the cameo expected to be made by the former Bulls star.
After the release of A New Legacy, a third film was in talks by Lee with Dwayne Johnson involved as the lead, transitioning on the sports genre from basketball to professional wrestling.
Critical response
On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, Space Jam holds an approval rating of 43% based on 89 reviews, with an average rating of 5.3/10. The website's critics consensus reads, "While it's no slam dunk, Space Jams silly, Looney Toons-laden slapstick and vivid animation will leave younger viewers satisfied – though accompanying adults may be more annoyed than entertained." Metacritic assigned the film a weighted average score of 59 out of 100 based on 22 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A−" on an A+ to F scale.
Accolades
Legacy
Cultural influence
The Monstars make a cameo in the Pinky and the Brain episode "Star Warners". Jordan, who was a spokesman for MCI Communications before the film was made, would appear with the Looney Tunes characters (as his " Space Jam buddies") in several MCI commercials for several years after the film was released before MCI merged with WorldCom and subsequently Verizon Communications. Bugs had previously appeared with Jordan as "Hare Jordan" in Nike ads for the Air Jordan VII and Air Jordan VIII. Hare Jordan & Air Jordan - Air Jordan VII YouTube (created by Nike and Warner Bros.) Hare Jordan & Air Jordan - Air Jordan VIII YouTube (created by Nike and Warner Bros.) In the next theatrical Looney Tunes film, , Jordan appears in archive footage from this film as one of the disguises of Mr. Chairman (Steve Martin). In 2013, Yahoo! Screen released a parody of ESPN's 30 for 30 about the game shown in the film. The short dates the game as taking place on November 17, 1995, although Jordan's real-life return to basketball when it occurred on March 18. ESPN 30 for 30 Short - Tune Squad vs. Monstars (the Space Jam Game) YouTube (created by Yahoo! Screen and Warner Bros.) In April 2019, the website SBNation ran a mockumentary April Fools Day episode of its popular Rewinder series on Jordan's climactic shot. The Nerdlucks appeared in the Teen Titans Go! original film Teen Titans Go! See Space Jam which aired on Cartoon Network on June 20, 2021, and was released on digital on July 27, 2021.
Sequel
A sequel to Space Jam was planned as early as 1996. As development began, Space Jam 2 was going to involve a new basketball competition with Michael Jordan and the Looney Tunes against a new alien villain named Berserk-O!. Artist Bob Camp was tasked with designing Berserk-O! and his two henchmen. Joe Pytka would have returned to direct while Cervone and his creative partner Spike Brandt signed on to direct the animation sequences. However, Jordan did not agree to star in a sequel, and Warner Bros. eventually cancelled plans for Space Jam 2.
See also
Bibliography
External links
Categories: Official Website, 1996 American Animated Films, 1996 Children's Films, 1996 Comedy Films, 1996 Films, 1990s Children's Animated Films, 1990s Fantasy Comedy Films, 1990s Science Fiction Comedy Films, 1990s Sports Comedy Films, 1990s English-language Films, Films About Alien Visitations, American Alternate History Films, American Basketball Films, American Fantasy Comedy Films, American Science Fiction Comedy Films, American Slapstick Comedy Films, American Sports Comedy Films, American Films With Live Action And Animation, Animated Films About Extraterrestrial Life, Animated Films Based On Animated Series, Animated Films About Parallel Universes, Animated Crossover Films, Animated Sports Films, Bugs Bunny Films, Rotoscoped Films, Works Based On Advertisements, Films About Animation, Films Adapted Into Comics, Films Directed By Joe Pytka, Films Produced By Ivan Reitman, Films Produced By Daniel Goldberg, Films With Screenplays By Herschel Weingrod, Films With Screenplays By Timothy Harris, Films Scored By James Newton Howard, Michael Jordan, Cultural Depictions Of Vlade Divac, Looney Tunes Films, Films Set In Chicago, Films Set In Los Angeles, Films Set In New York City, Films Set In Amusement Parks, Films Set On Fictional Planets, Films Set In 1973, Films Set In 1993, Films Shot In California, Films Shot In Chicago, Films Shot In Los Angeles, Films Shot In New York City, Warner Bros. Animated Films, Warner Bros. Animation Films, Films About The Nba, 1996 Science Fiction Films, American Films About Extraterrestrial Life, English-language Science Fiction Comedy Films, Warner Bros. Films, English-language Fantasy Comedy Films, English-language Sports Comedy Films, Daffy Duck Films
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