Sony Pictures plans Jump Street and Men in Black movie crossover: email leak reveals details

Well this one is certainly unexpected. Emails leaked by the Sony Pictures hackers have revealed plans for the next Jump Street film to crossover in some way with Men in Black.

Emails from co-chairman Amy Pascal (via The Wall Street Journal) indicate that 21 and 22 Jump Street writers and directors will return to at least write the script, and may direct it as well.

It is also said that Men in Black stars Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones won't be involved – at least not in prominent roles – indicating a reboot of some sorts. Perhaps Jump Street becomes the new Men in Black?

The Jump Street series is based on 80s Johnny Depp TV series 21 Jump Street, and stars Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill as cops who go undercover at a high school to infiltrate a drug ring. The sequel released this year saw them go undercover at a university.

Hannah Minghella, president of production at Sony's Columbia Pictures label, says in an email: "We don't have a script yet so we'll be greenlighting the movie off the concept and the talent involved."

In response to the idea, Jonah Hill wrote in an email: "Jump Street merging with MiB I think that's clean and rad and powerful."

A letter to Steven Spielberg, who executive produced the three Men in Black films to date, from Sony Pictures' president of worldwide business affairs and operations Andrew Gumpert, said: "We didn't do as well as we had hoped for on the last MIB film, but that hasn't caused us to lose faith in the franchise.

"In reality, the exact opposite has occurred where we all have an opportunity to take an interim step on the way to hopefully forging ahead again in the pure-play MIB universe."

In 2011 Men in Black 3 disappointed at the box office and was savaged by critics.

Described as a high profile project for the company, with a target release date of 2016 or 2017, Sony are hopeful that production can begin shortly.