Space Jam 2 is just one of those films that cannot get out of development hell. The long-awaited follow-up to the Michael Jordan and Looney Tunes basketball mashup will star LeBron James. Beyond that, we don’t know much else about the film, except that it went through a couple of directors before settling on Terence Nance, who directed An Oversimplification of Her Beauty and created the HBO series Random Acts of Flyness, to helm the film.

Now the film has found a big name producer. According to new reports, Black Panther director Ryan Coogler will give an assist. More on the story below.

The report comes to us from THR.

Here’s what James had to say about the announcement:

In fact, James’ Springhillent company posted an Instagram image (seen below) of a locker room with all of the talent’s names, plus a few sketches of familiar Looney Tunes characters and other mementos. So at least the social media campaign for the film is off to a running start.

But one of the main reasons why Coogler was brought on board was his talent for delivering a successful mainstream film with a black perspective and with a predominantly black cast. Black Panther went on to gross $1.3 billion worldwide. This following other films like Fruitvale Station and Creed. The latter of which is getting a sequel. So the filmmaker is in very high demand.

Additionally the film has seen its share of problems, with finding a director at the top of that list. Justin Lin was attached to the project at one point in time. But we can expect things to move along a lot faster now that they’ve found a director. Also, James signing on with the Lakers puts him a lot closer to Hollywood.

No word yet on when Warner Bros. would like to release Space Jam 2, but we will keep you up to date should any news arrive.

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[Source: THR]