Any fans who have been waiting the last 9 years for another sequel to Men in Black will have to wait a little longer. A script for Men in Black III was commissioned in 2009 and the movie was officially greenlit last year. Principal production began in November after a few bumps in the road, but then took an unusual two-month holiday break until it was supposed to resume this week. This was due to producers opting to shoot the film in two phases (Spoiler Alert!): Pre-hiatus was the production that was set in present day while the post-hiatus production would apparently involve some time travel as it would be set in 1969. Now The Los Angeles Times exclusively reveals an interesting development in that Sony has further delayed production until March 28 due to lingering script issues for the final act. During the hiatus Jeff Nathanson (Catch Me if You Can) came aboard to work on some new material for the screenplay based on a previous version developed by Etan Coen (Tropic Thunder).
Director Barry Sonnenfeld returns for a third go-round, as well as Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones reprising their roles of Agent J and K respectively. New additions are Josh Brolin (Jonah Hex) , who stars as a younger Agent K through the aforementioned time travel plot, and Emma Thompson (Nanny McPhee Returns, Stranger Than Fiction) as someone named Oh. Simultaneously announced with the delay is a new cast addition of Alice Eve (She’s Out of My League), who will play the younger version of Emma Thompson’s character.
It has been 14 years since the first film crossed our screens and fortunately fans will only have to wait 1 more year as the projected release date of May 2012 has not been affected by the production delay.