A few weeks back Space Jam: A New Legacy — the very belated sequel to the basketball-and-Looney Tunes original — became the most controversial movie of 2021. It was back when conservative media was distracting itself with fury over children’s entertainment. Grabby Pepe Le Pew had been removed. Lola Bunny was now feminist. Suddenly it wasn’t just another franchise entry that people might be able to actually watch on a big screen.
But ignore all that for now: The sequel now has its first official trailer, and it’s not controversial in the least. We’ve been promised it will involve far more the just Bugs Bunny and gang. It will involve the entire, vast Warner Bros. catalogue. We only get a taste of that here, starting with star LeBron James happening upon some mystical portal. “Is this some kind of matrix?” he asks, a winky-winky nod to one of the company’s most beloved film series.
He’s then plunged into a computerized world, where an evil Don Cheadle informs him he has to win some CGI basketball game in order to save his son. We see Bugs, we see Lola, we blink-and-miss appearances from Porky Pig, Yosemite Sam, the Tasmanian Devil, and more. And we see some slam dunks. One item not there: Bill Murray, who it appears will be sitting this sequel out, much as he did Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle.
Space Jam: A New Legacy hits theaters on July 16.