Space Jam: A New Legacy not only brought the Looney Tunes back to the big screen but it also featured a bunch of characters owned by Warner Bros. as part of the audience of the big game against the Goon Squad, but this and other elements highlight two of Hollywood’s biggest current problems. In 1996, the Looney Tunes went on a different adventure in Joe Pytka’s Space Jam, which brought together Bugs Bunny and company and professional basketball, with NBA star Michael Jordan leading the Tune Squad.
Space Jam told a fictionalized version of what happened during Michael Jordan’s initial retirement in 1993 and his return in 1995, during which he helped Bugs Bunny and friends win a basketball game against a team of aliens known as Monstars, who wanted to enslave them. Over two decades later, a proper sequel has arrived, titled Space Jam: A New Legacy, which takes the basic premise of a basketball game between the Looney Tunes and another team, with the Looney Tunes now led by Los Angeles Lakers' LeBron James. Instead of going to space, the story took Bugs, LeBron, and the rest to a digital world, where they crossed paths with a variety of worlds and characters from Warner Bros.’ catalogue.
Space Jam: A New Legacy follows LeBron James who has to rescue his son Dom (Cedric Joe) from the Warner Bros.’ serververse, overseen by an evil A.I. called Al-G Rhythm (Don Cheadle). LeBron has to lead the Tune Squad in a basketball game against Rhythm's Goon Squad, formed by digitized and enhanced versions of other NBA stars. Unlike the first movie, which only focused on the Looney Tunes and new characters like the Monstars, Space Jam 2 also featured a variety of characters from worlds like Game of Thrones, Scooby-Doo, and even Pennywise and A Clockwork Orange’s gang members, which highlights two big problems in the film industry lately: nostalgia and IPs/franchises.
Even though Space Jam 2 is a new story with a new NBA star, it takes the exact same premise as the first one, with writers relying more on nostalgia than the story itself, even playing with a supposed Michael Jordan cameo that ended up being nothing more than a joke. There’s also the topic of franchises, which have gained force with connected universes like those of Marvel and DC, which pay a lot of attention to how they can bring as many characters in as possible as Space Jam 2 did with the audience at the game. It’s similar to what the Ready Player One movie did, though many felt Space Jam 2 overused those Warner Bros. properties and the movie ended up being the longest Warner and HBO Max commercial ever. While this can be fun for some viewers, as they can try and see how many characters they can spot in the background, it further shows Hollywood’s current dependency on IPs/franchises and its lack of attention to the stories of its new movies, using nostalgia as their bait.
As a result, Space Jam: A New Legacy hasn’t been a favorite of critics but it has been mostly well-received by the audience, which could be further proof of how these Hollywood problems do no good to the industry yet continue to be welcomed by the audience, though that might change in the coming years if studios continue to rely on nostalgia and franchises to bring “new” content.
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