Space Jam: A New Legacy isn’t what critics were expecting, but bad reviews haven’t stopped it from being a box office hit – here’s why it’s so popular with the audience. The Looney Tunes have gone through a variety of adventures since their debut in 1930, but they went through a completely new and unexpected one in 1996 in Joe Pytka’s Space Jam. The movie combined animation and live-action and brought together two very different worlds unlikely to cross paths in real life: the Looney Tunes and professional basketball.

Space Jam told a fictionalized version of what happened during Michael Jordan’s initial retirement in 1993 and his return in 1995, during which he helped the Looney Tunes win a basketball game against a team of aliens known as Monstars. Now, over two decades later, a sequel has arrived titled Space Jam: A New Legacy, which took the basic premise of a basketball game between the Looney Tunes and another team with Bugs Bunny and company led by an NBA superstar, this time Los Angeles Lakers’ LeBron James, but with a more family-oriented approach. Although Space Jam fans had been waiting for this new movie for years, critics haven’t been that welcoming, yet the movie is as popular as expected.

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Space Jam: A New Legacy sees LeBron James teaming up with the Looney Tunes to rescue his son from the Warner Bros. serververse (a virtual space multiverse where all Warner properties live in), overseen by Al-G Rhythm (Don Cheadle). James and the Tune Squad have to defeat Rhythm’s Goon Squad, whose players are digitized and enhanced versions of other NBA stars, in order to rescue Dom and return to the human world. Space Jam 2 is more family-oriented than the original movie, which is exactly what critics are forgetting.

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Family is the central theme in Space Jam 2, with emphasis on LeBron James’ relationship with his son, who he has pushed to play basketball even though the young boy is more interested in developing video games. As such, and with a bunch of characters from Warner’s catalogue showing up at the big game, Space Jam 2 is a movie made for parents and their kids, and with theaters around the world starting to reopen, this new adventure is the perfect opportunity for families to start going to the movies again. In addition to that, LeBron James is one of the biggest, currently active athletes and who has a fanbase of his own, who would obviously be drawn to watch a movie led by their favorite athlete and involving their favorite sport.

Critics, on the other hand, have focused more on the “lack of self-referential humor” like the one in the first movie and continue to compare both stories when they had different goals and targets. Space Jam: A New Legacy is not the only nor the first movie to receive bad reviews and be a box office success, and in the end, it’s the audience who will decide if a movie is a hit or not, and this new Looney Tunes adventure seems to be connecting well with the audience so far.

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About The Author


Adrienne Tyler
(3274 Articles Published)

Adrienne Tyler is a features writer for Screen Rant. She is an Audiovisual Communication graduate who wanted to be a filmmaker, but life had other plans (and it turned out great). Prior to Screen Rant, she wrote for Pop Wrapped, 4 Your Excitement (4YE), and D20Crit, where she was also a regular guest at Netfreaks podcast. She was also a contributor for FanSided’s BamSmackPow and 1428 Elm. Adrienne is very into films and she enjoys a bit of everything: from superhero films to heartbreaking dramas, to low-budget horror films. Every time she manages to commit to a TV show without getting bored, an angel gets its wings.

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When she’s not writing, you can find her trying to learn a new language, watching hockey (go Avs!), or wondering what life would have been like had Pushing Daisies, Firefly, and Limitless not been cancelled. Breakfast food is life and coffee is what makes the world go round.

Guillermo del Toro said “hi” to her once. It was great.

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