'Men In Black 3D' Gets One More Writer As Film Moves Towards Production

Jeff Nathanson To Do Time-Travel Section Polish On Top Of David Koepp and Etan Cohen; Film's Production Broken Into Two Parts

After a few delays, "Men In Black 3D" or Men In Black 3," however you want to refer to it, starts production in New York tomorrow and right on time, Columbia Pictures has hired new writer Jeff Nathanson -- credits include "Catch Me If You Can" and "Rush Hour 2" -- to give another polish to the script. Wait how does that work? A film goes into production and you just hire a new writer?

Well, it actually works the way the production works which is bifurcated. Meaning, "Men In Back 3D" is being split production-wise. The "present day" part of the script will start shooting as said, tomorrow. The picture will shoot through the week of Christmas and then the production will take a two-month hiatus and will resume in February to shoot the time travel parts of the film. Remember that? Josh Brolin is said to play the younger version of Tommy Lee Jones character in that section and apparently that section needs some punch-up work.

Etan Cohen ("Tropic Thunder") wrote the original draft of the script, David Koepp ("Panic Room," "Spider-Man") gave it a polish and now Nathanson is giving it a third once over which is really nothing compared to the amount of writers rumored to have done passes on "Logan's Run" which is still not in production, for example.

Apparently celebrity figures like Yoko Ono, Jimi Hendrix, Fidel Castro, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Andy Warhol also figure into the script in what we imagine will be time-traveling cameos.

"Men In Black III" (yet another iteration of the name) is set to hit theaters May 25, 2012, the start of Memorial Day weekend. There's no exact date competition yet, but leading up to that date in May 2012, we'll see "The Avengers" (May 4), "Battleship" (May 18) and "Madagascar 3" (May 18) hit screens.

Directed by Barry Sonnenfeld ("Men In Black" one and two), the film stars Will Smith, Tommy Lee Jones, Josh Brolin, Emma Thompson, Jemaine Clement, plus late casting arrivals Sharlto Copley, Gemma Arterton, Alec Baldwin and Nicole Scherzinger. Once rumored, Betty White says she will no longer appear. [LATimes]