Looks Like Everyone Has Read the Men in Black 3 Script – What Did They Think?

I’ve still not actually read it myself, but it seems like pretty much everybody else in the West has been flicking through the script for Men in Black 3. Most of my sources want to remain anonymous, I’m afraid, but one of them is a public website.

So… does the chorus of opinion sound like beautiful birdsong or the screeching harpies of Hell? Let’s go through a few key points, one at a time. There will, I’m afraid, be some potential spoilers. Yep, MEDIUM-SIZED SPOILERS. So move along now if you want to remain fully in the dark. And the rest of you remember: this script will probably change somewhat on the way to the screen, so what I’m about to say now might not contain a single real spoiler at all. I’ve also filtered out anything that might resemble an actual twist from either act two or three.

Are you sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin.

• The film is a time travel story and is, for the most part, set in 1969. This was apparently designed to maintain the Jay and Kay relationship but let somebody else play Kay. I’m assuming Tommy Lee Jones just didn’t want to sign up for another full three-course sitting of this stuff, and who can blame him.

• The young Kay is to be played by Josh Brolin. Assuming the ‘present day’ of the film is the here and now, where Tommy Lee Jones is 64, he would have been 23 in 1969. The script says he’s either 25 or 26 – reports differ. This means Jones has been playing older than his age all along. Curiously, the 42-year old Josh Brolin has been cast in the role. JoBlo certainly noted how odd this situation is in their report, though I’m told the script tries to make a joke out of this disparity.

• JoBlo also commented on the oddity of Jemaine Clement’s being cast as the alien villain, Boris, formerly Yaz. Everybody tells me that Boris is written as a threatening, foreboding presence which, if nothing else serves as a reminder that “this script will probably change somewhat on the way to the screen.” Nobody seems to find the character interesting; everybody agrees that he seems to have been miscast.

• Boris has been imprisoned on the moon. Apparently there are alien jails there – I was right all along. In the very beginning, his ladyfriend Devil Girl brings him a special alien cake that helps him escape. She’s bound to be played by a supermodel cameo or similar.

• Zed has a role on the page, so it looks like Rip Torn is going to be asked back.

• The main incident to kick-start the story’s threat and danger actually happens off screen. It has to, because it happens in the past and the timeline shifts around Agent Jay in the present day, which he comes to notice. There’s been a lot of comments made on how unusual this is, and plenty of questions about whether or not it actually makes sense.

• At this point we learn that Agent Kay was killed in Florida in 1969. Jay uses an iPhone app to travel back in time and meddle with cause-and-effect again. If he doesn’t save Kay, then the whole world is going to burn in 2012.

• In the past, which is where we spend most of the screenplay, there’s a lot of business about Agent Jay’s race. Not only do we see every possible joke about his being black that you can imagine, it even gets him accused of being an alien. Okay – not just being black but being black and driving a caddy that he’s only driving because somebody made an assumption about his race.

• JoBlo say that the script features Yoko Ono, Jimi Hendrix, Castro, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Andy Warhol as cameo characters, and that every last one is revealed to be an alien. There’s a Spider-Man joke that will need a little tweak now that Andrew Garfield has the part too.

• There’s still a car chase component. This, it seems, is why Boris is a biker in the first place.

• Ultimately, the world is saved by playing a videogame. Not a videogame from the present day, however, and not even a videogame from 1969 – this one was released in 1972. In the script, it is revealed to have been invented by oracular aliens who know the earth will one day need it to stave off a massive alien attack.

• Boris wants to kill the game developer aliens and prevent the invention of the defense system. Again, many questions have been raised about how much this whole cause and effect loop here does or doesn’t make sense. Are these aliens seeing an actual future? A potential future? Apparently, it’s not clear. Some say it doesn’t need to be.

• After the climax, there’s a Sound of Thunder-style joke at the end of the script which shows how current history hasn’t quite been reverted to normal. It’s a gag that gets right to the heart of the Men in Black concept, and it even means a Men in Black 4 would be impossible to make without actually changing things back again. I’ve made it sound rather more serious than it actually is.

• One joke I’m not sure we’ll see in the finished film is a star cameo from a very famous movie making hyphenate. Will he go ahead and do the day’s filming? I hope so because everybody seemed to like that bit especially.

If that sounds good to you and you want in, then see the open casting call that has gone out today looking for the following extras in New York City:

● Men and women with professional-level skills as contortionists and/or mimes to play aliens. They are looking for people who have training in body movement and are comfortable wearing prosthetic makeup.

● Men and women who are less than 4’10 or more than 6’5 in height to play aliens, Must be comfortable wearing prosthetic makeup.

● Men and women to play late 1960s New Yorkers — hippies, conservative businessmen and secretaries, bikers, blue-collar types, etc… Men must be willing to get their hair cut/styled to fit the time period.

● People with 1960s era cars in good to mint condition. When submitting, send a picture of yourself and the car. List the make, model, year, and color.

The e-mail address for extras to apply to is mib3@gwcnyc.com

It specifically states on the casting call that the script has been written by Etan Cohen. Apparently David Koepp did not replace him as writer, only provided a little bit of polish.

The film is currently scheduled for a 3D release on May 25th 2012.