MEN IN BLACK
THE STORY BEHIND THE SF AND FANTASY OF YESTERYEAR 1997
“IT DOESN’T FEEL LIKE 22 YEARS AGO in some ways but it feels like a really long time ago in other ways,” laughs director Barry Sonnenfeld, recalling the shoot for Men In Black. “I don’t know any franchise that goes five years between the first and second, then ten years between the second and third, but somehow that’s what happened. I’m really proud of the movie, but it was a really hard one to pull off.”
Back in 1997, there was little expectation for Sonnenfeld’s high-concept space adventure. Based on a relatively unknown comic book from author Lowell Cunningham and illustrator Sandy Carruthers, its story focused more on demons, vampires and the undead than the clandestine existence of aliens on Earth. It wasn’t until producers Walter F Parkes and Laurie MacDonald hired Bill and Ted cocreator Ed Solomon to pen a script that the Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones-fronted Men In Black we know today began to take shape.
