In 1997, filmmaker Barry Sonnenfeld embarked on a whole new saga with “Men in Black”. Become cult, the film is full of humor and references of all kinds. For example, at the end of the feature film, the story offers a rather funny valve on Michael Jackson. Joke that does not exist in the original version of the film. Explanations:
Men in Black : from comics to screen
Before Barry Sonnenfeld does not realize Men in Black in 1997, the famous men in black come from a series of comics. Indeed, in 1990, Lowell Cunningham published Malibu Comic editions 5 character-centric volumes. It was in 1992 that producers Walter F. Parkes and Laurie MacDonald discovered this story.
While the comics are dark and violent, Sony Pictures prefers to take the story to a buddy movie comical and endearing. This risky bet is finally won since success is on the way. The aspect full of self-mockery of the film and the aesthetics of Barry Sonnenfeld which sometimes recalls that of Tim Burton hit the bull’s eye. The presence of Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith also made it possible to rally the public in theaters.
Men in Black ultimately yields more than $589 million in box office receipts (for a budget of 90 million). Faced with this success, Sony embarked on the production of an entire saga, currently composed of 4 films.
The joke about Michael Jackson
At the very end of the film, Barry Sonnenfeld has fun explaining that some of america’s biggest stars are actually aliens. Spectators thus discover a painting with different celebrities who are all considered aliens came to Earth.
The most observant can thus recognize Steven Spielberg, Sylvester Stallone or even Michael Jackson. Except that for Michael Jackson, this joke only exists for the french version. In fact, in the original dialogue, there is never any mention of the King of Pop. In the original version, it’s about basketball player Dennis Rodman. But since the latter is not very famous in France, the translators opted for replace him with Michael Jackson.
What’s funny is that a few years later, Michael Jackson makes an appearance (in the flesh this time) in Men in Black II. He appears as an alien who wants a promotion to MiB, but keeps getting turned down.
A rather funny situation since this small change aimed at the French public in the first film was in fact randomly premonitory.