Space Jam sits in that coveted spot in pop culture where it is a film that’s not really that good, yet it is entertaining as hell and that more than makes up for all its shortcomings. So it was a little surprising to discover that Space Jam didn’t come out of a desire to entertain or a fortuitous match made in heaven, but rather through a strange cocktail involving Michael Jordan, the Looney Tunes, and trying to sell Air Jordans.
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The origins of Space Jam began back in 1992 (as per The Chicago Tribune) when Looney Tunes were still popular but slowly fading, Michael Jordan was the biggest thing in the world, and Nike really wanted to sell Air Jordans.
With the Super Bowl coming up, someone thought of an idea to put all those aforementioned ingredients into a bowl and see what sort of commercial gold came out of it.
This led to the creation of a pretty cringey ad for Air Jordans that starred Bugs Bunny and Michael Jordan. But as lame and quintessential 90s as the ad was, it proved to be ridiculously popular and helped push the Looney Tunes back to the spotlight while making Michael even more famous than he already was.
After catching the lightning in the bottle once, Michael Jordan’s longtime agent, David Falk, wanted to do it again and really pushed for the Air Jordans ad to be expanded into a movie or something. As it so happens, Warner Bros. also wanted to revive its Looney Tunes franchise and when Falk came knocking around 1994-95 with a movie pitch starring Michael Jordan, it all lined up perfectly.
Despite Michael having just retired at the time, Warner Bros. took a gamble on him as he still had the star power to sell anything. While there were some production hurdles, like trying to extract some decent acting from an NBA star who’s never acted before, the film was ultimately a massive success when it came out in 1996.
It was estimated that Space Jam ultimately had an economic impact of between $4 to $6 billion, which goes to show the power of putting Michael Jordan and the Looney Tunes on a basketball court together.
As Hollywood is wont to do, they’re going to try this all again with by making a Space Jam 2 with LeBron James. However, even if that were a masterpiece, it is almost unlikely to match the impact of the first movie due to the strange – and capitalistic – way that originally came about.
But hey, we’ll always have the first Space Jam and that lame Air Jordans Super Bowl ad to fall back upon if the sequel sucks.
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