The ‘Space Jam: A New Legacy’ Director Says That Lola Bunny Will Be Less ‘Sexualized’ Than She Was In The Original

Entertainment Weekly has released the first images from the long-in-the-works Space Jam: A New Legacy. There’s LeBron James in his Tune Squad jersey dunking an electric basketball with the Eiffel Tower and a waterfall behind him (this movie is going to be wild); there’s a slim Big Chungus, a.k.a. Bugs Bunny, looking nervous about something; and there’s the image that has most caught the internet’s attention, Lola Bunny with a different uniform style than in the original Space Jam starring Michael Jordan.

Director Malcolm D. Lee told EW that after watching 1996’s Space Jam for the first time in 2019, he was caught off guard by the “very sexualized” depiction of the Tune Squad’s only female athlete. “This is 2021. It’s important to reflect the authenticity of strong, capable female characters,” he said. Lola was “reworked” for A New Legacy to make her less the object of Bugs’ “Doll” affection and more “the team’s best non-LeBron player.”

This is the only safe for work reaction to the news:

As for the plot… Remember when I said this movie is going to be wild? Well:

Playing a heightened version of himself, [LeBron] James struggles to relate to his son Dom [played by 16-year-old Cedric Joe], who’s much more interested in creating games than playing them. When Dom’s tech skills draw the attention of a CGI humanoid named Al G Rhythm (Don Cheadle), the father-son duo get sucked into the Warner 3000 entertainment “Server-verse,” with the A.I. kidnapping Dom in the hopes of stealing some of the King’s followers (IRL he has about 80 million on Instagram). Cheadle doesn’t consider Al G a bad guy (what bad guy does?), but rather “an A.I. with a chip on his shoulder,” says the MCU veteran.

There’s no word on whether Bill Murray will be back for the sequel. Space Jam: A New Legacy, the first Looney Tunes movie since 2003’s underrated Looney Tunes: Back in Action, is scheduled to be released theatrically and on HBO Max on July 16.

(Via EW)