Because when a franchise needs a resurgence, add a woman! It “worked” for the original Karate Kid movies, when Hilary Swank took over the reins for that series’ fourth installment, so why couldn’t it work with Men in Black? That’s right; apparently after surprisingly high-grossing, though critically shrugged, third film in the series, the producers behind the people-in-suits-fighting-aliens movie series has decided to focus on a Woman in Black for part four, owing to star Will Smith likely bowing out for this one.

In an interview with the BBC, producer Laurie MacDonald said that the new film will “prominently feature a woman in black,” something that hasn’t happened in the films since the last four minutes of the first movie when Linda Fiorentino was made a new agent. She didn’t reprise her role in the subsequent films and the character was dropped, though a version of Elle was used as a main character in the spinoff cartoon I used to watch all the time.

Walter Parkes, MacDonald’s husband and co-producer, also said the movie will be a “reinvention” of the series, moving away from Smith’s Agent Jay and Tommy Lee Jones’ Agent Kay. One would imagine there’d be many more letters of the alphabet to name someone, so we’ll see. Parkes said Smith would “most likely not be involved” but also to “never count Will out.” Couldn’t hurt to have him in there somewhere, given that 2012’s Men in Black III was the highest grosser of the trilogy.

It’s more than a little irritating that it’s still big news that a woman is going to take over some franchise or another. Yeah, they’re called “Men in Black,” but that’s only because that’s what the paranormal phenomenon and the Lowell Cunningham comic were called. But, hey, newsworthy or not, more big roles for women is never a bad thing.

Let us know your take on a Woman in Black in the comments below!

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HT: Entertainment Weekly
Image: Sony

Kyle Anderson is the Weekend Editor and a film and TV critic for Nerdist.com. Follow him on Twitter!