'Skate Jam' Was The 'Space Jam' Sequel We Deserved
Nearly 25 years after the Looney Tunes and Michael Jordan crossover burst into the cultural zeitgeist, Space Jam: A New Legacy dropped … to a resounding “meh” from critics and audiences alike. The OG Space Jam was hardly a cinematic masterpiece, but its goofy premise and ear-worm theme song solidified it as a beautiful time capsule of 1996. Of course, no one can predict the future, but it seems unlikely that A New Legacy will have the same staying power.
Now, for a Space Jam sequel that could have been a worthy successor, look no further than the king of the extreme, Tony Hawk. When the LeBron James-led sequel was in production in 2019, Hawk tweeted about a canceled film entitled Skate Jam. Just as the name implies, this movie would see Bugs and pals shredding with the namesake behind the best video games of all time.
“Canceled” may be a bit of a strong word when talking about Skate Jam, though. That gives the idea that any real progress had been made, but this is sadly not the case. Rather, this seems like Warner Bros. had the idea for the movie, but the project was scrapped early on. Even the Cancelled Movies Wiki, a community dedicated to digging up information about lost films, has nothing on Skate Jam besides the information offered in Tony Hawk’s tweet.
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As Hawk’s tweet says, Warner Bros. got cold feet after the flop of 2003’s Looney Tunes: Back in Action.
This Brendan Fraser-led live-action-animation hybrid (which deserves a deep dive of its own) only made $68,514,844 on an $80,000,000 budget. This made Warner Bros. wary of future Looney Tunes media and led to the tragic death of Skate Jam before it could even begin.
Instead, Warner Bros. opted to shift the direction of Looney Tunes for a while in an attempt to keep the property relevant for the kids of the early 2000s. This mindset gave us 2005’s Loonatics Unleashed, an edgy post-apocalyptic reboot of the characters.
Now, a skateboarding Looney Tunes movie would also be a cringey attempt at being hip, but at least it would have been funny. Alas, Skate Jam will likely forever remain as it is today, immortalized in a lone tweet from Tony Hawk. A modern age tragedy indeed.
Top Image: Warner Bros.
