A planned hiatus in the middle of shooting the science-fiction comedy Men In Black III has been extended a month longer while the production scrambles to fix alleged script issues. Cameras were set to roll on the film this week.
The news was broken by the Los Angeles Times.
Originally, the threequel was slated to begin production in October, though the start date was pushed back a month. The delay was rumored to be over “creative differences” between star Will Smith and the producers, though studio Sony denied the allegations. Production finally commenced in November in New York City. A short while later, it was announced that the producers intended to extend the production’s Christmas break to mid-February. As the film’s storyline involves a trip into the past life of Agent K (Tommy Lee Jones) in 1969, the fall shooting would encompass all of the modern day scenes with the sequences in the past to be shot in February and March. At the same time, the producers brought in Jeff Nathanson (Catch Me If You Can) to give the shooting script by Etan Cohen (Tropic Thunder) a polish.
The Los Angeles Times‘s report sources an anonymous person “close to the 3D production” as saying that this latest delay is again script related.
James Brolin, who is set to play Jones’s character in 1969, is quoted as becoming impatient with the continuing delays.
“It’s one of those things where they say, ‘OK, I’m going to go in a week1 and then they say, ‘Actually, it’s going to be two weeks.’ OK, that’s all right. And then they go, ‘OK, it’s going to be three,'” he said. “I mean, come on already.”
After years of rumored tries, Sony was finally able to get the ball rolling on a Men In Black sequel in 2009.
Sony states that the new delay won’t affect their planned May 2012 release date, although it will mean that director Barry Sonnenfeld and his post-production crew will have that much less time to meet that deadline. Here’s hoping that the final film is worth all the trouble.
