Mission: Impossible has proven to be quite the launchpad for breakout star Rebecca Ferguson. After booking a plum roles in The Greatest Showman and Joe Cornish’s upcoming The Kid Who Would Be King off the back of her time with the IMF, the Swedish actor has now been recruited for the mooted Men in Black reboot.
Tentatively titled MIB, the “spin-off” of the Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones-starring sci-fi/action franchise will be lead by Thor: Ragnarok co-stars Chris Hemsworth and Tessa Thompson as Agents H and M, respectively. Ferguson is the latest addition to an impressive supporting cast which thus far includes Liam Neeson, The Big Sick‘s Kumail Nanjiani, Rafe Spall and Emma Thompson reprising her role of the secret agency’s head from 2012’s Men in Black 3.
This one takes a bit of explaining, so bear with us if it sounds like we’ve suffered one too many neuraliser blasts. Since that last Men in Black film, the franchise has gone through some unusual phases of development. Smith and Jones were eager to shoot a fourth film, although director Barry Sonnenfeld suggested he might wait until Agent J’s suit could be filled by the younger Jaden Smith.
Oren Uziel began writing a script for Men in Black 4, only for series producers Walter Parkes and Laurie MacDonald to announced in 2015 that the franchise was going to be rebooted, with an entirely new cast, with plans for a new trilogy of movies.
Parallel to that, Phil Lord and Chris Miller were agitating for a crossover between their 21 Jump Street movies and Men in Black, an idea which fell prey as much to the Sony hack as the sheer insanity of the concept.
All of which leads us to today, where MIB is now the official (and only) continuation of the original series of films, this time directed by The Fate of the Furious and Straight Outta Compton‘s F Gary Gray.
Ferguson’s role has yet to be confirmed, with smart money being on her being the film’s villain. MIB will apparently involve a “London-based team of Men in Black agents becoming involved in a murder mystery that sends them travelling the globe.”
MIB will beam down into cinemas on June 14 2019.
