New stills from Space Jam: A New Legacy show Looney Tunes characters visiting Mad Max, The Matrix, Austin Powers, and DC movie universes with basketball star, LeBron James. The film is a standalone sequel to 1996's Space Jam which paired iconic cartoon personalities including Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck with basketball star, Michael Jordan. The sequel, combining live-action with 2D and 3D animated Looney Tunes characters, releases on July 16 in theaters and on HBO Max.
The new images reveal just a handful of the Warner Bros. properties that will be making an appearance in the Space Jam sequel. A trailer released on April 3 teased some of the franchises that will be featured, including The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter, as well as dozens of classic movies from The Wizard of Oz and Casablanca to A Clockwork Orange and The Goonies. The star-studded cast will pair LeBron James with actors including Don Cheadle as an evil computer algorithm and Zendaya as Lola Bunny.
In a post by DiscussingFilm via Twitter, four new stills from Space Jam: A New Legacy have been revealed. The first shows the Road Runner darting across the post-apocalyptic landscape of Mad Max: Fury Road. The second features animated Granny in a latex catsuit à la The Matrix fighting a live-action cop. The third has a bald Elmer Fudd impersonating Mike Myers's iconic villain, Dr. Evil, from the Austin Powers movies, and the final image shows an animated version of LeBron James dressed as Robin and Bugs Bunny as Batman talking in the Batmobile. Check out the photos below:
Seen together, the four stills give a taste of the eclectic range of references that the Space Jam sequel has to offer. The Looney Tunes cartoons are no stranger to refL{"<erences, from Carrotblanca to parodies of classical music such as Wagner's Ring Cycle in What's Opera, Doc? The feature film appears to be relying on in-jokes and cameos as its main source of comedy, enhanced by the familiarity of the animated characters parodying those classic films.
The images also tease some upcoming Warner Bros. releases, with a fourth Matrix movie scheduled for release in December and a fifth Mad Max movie in the works for release in 2023. With featured content reaching as far back as 1933's King Kong, the film will likely introduce new audiences to the studio's older properties and franchises, many of which are available on the HBO Max streaming service, which will stream Space Jam: A New Legacy alongside its theatrical release. It also seems that the film will blur the lines between live-action and different animation styles as the images show LeBron James' animated version alongside Bugs Bunny. It certainly looks set to be a wild and looney ride.
Source: Discussing Film