LeBron James In Space Jam 2, Ryan Coogler To Produce

A follow-up to the hit 1996 movie “Space Jam” will star basketball player LeBron James who plays for the Los Angeles Lakers, and will be produced by “Black Panther” director Ryan Coogler, reports said Wednesday.

“I loved his vision,” James told Hollywood Reporter, adding there were no black superheroes when he was a kid growing up in Akron, Ohio. "So for Ryan to be able to bring that to kids, it’s amazing.”

The movie will be directed by Terence Nance, the creator of HBO’s “Random Acts of Flyness.” No casting other than James and Bugs Bunny has been revealed yet.

SpringHill Entertainment officially announced “Space Jam 2” on its Instagram and Twitter pages Wednesday. The firm, founded by James and Maverick Carter, creates "compelling stories for television, features, and digital,” the company website said.

Rumors about James' involvement in a possible remake of the original 1996 movie have been doing the rounds since the company signed a deal with Warner Bros — which produced the original "Looney Tunes" from 1930 to 1969 — in 2015. According to a report on SBNation, he finally agreed to be part of the project once Coogler was involved.

“Ton of star power here. King Coogler. King James. And so excited that folks who don’t currently know and fawn over King Nance soon will,” Ava DuVernay, director of the 2014 movie “Selma,” tweeted Wednesday.

“The Space Jam collaboration is so much more than just me and the Looney Tunes getting together and doing this movie,” James told Hollywood Reporter. “It’s so much bigger. I’d just love for kids to understand how empowered they can feel and how empowered they can be if they don’t just give up on their dreams. And I think Ryan did that for a lot of people.”

Space Jam 2 will be one of the biggest projects James will be involved in. He produced numerous shows in 2017 including a documentary series “Best Shot” and his barbershop talk show “The Shop." He also played a supporting role in the 2015 film “Trainwreck” that starred Amy Schumer and Bill Hader.

The original “Space Jam” featured several "Looney Tunes" stars like Daffy Duck, Tasmanian Devil, Tweety Bird, and Sylvester the cat, along with Michael Jordon and many other basketball players. The movie was an instant hit. It followed the life of Jordon, who was a retired NBA shooting guard for the Chicago Bulls pursuing a career in baseball. He ends up in the world of "Looney Tunes" after he was roped in to help the cartoon characters in a life-or-death tournament against a group of aliens who stole talents from the NBA legends of the day. The film is still the highest highest-grossing basketball movie of all time, according to a report on The Hollywood Reporter.

The filming of the new movie will begin during the NBA offseason next summer, according to a report on SBNation. The release date was not announced. Details like the other "Looney Tunes" stars or the players who might appear in the movie are not revealed yet.