‘Men in Black’ circles crop of celeb aliens
Spoiler alert! If you don’t want the alien gag revealed here, or think Elvis really still lives, stop reading!
They walk among us, even sing “Thank U, Next” among us.
The reboot of “Men in Black: International,” which won the weekend box office with new agents played by Chris Hemsworth and Tessa Thompson, continues the franchise tradition of revealing celebrities living in our midst who have hidden a stunning secret.
They are in fact space aliens being monitored by a top-secret government agency.
In a blink-and-you-miss-it moment in the MIB headquarters, the star aliens are shown on the agency’s monitoring screen.
Ariana Grande leads off the list of extraterrestrials uncovered by “MIB: International,” which might explain her hit song “NASA.” She’s followed on the agency screen by SpaceX CEO and Tesla creator Elon Musk and director J.J. Abrams.
The final celebrity is Donald Glover, who starred as intergalactic gambler Lando Calrissian in “Solo: A Star Wars Story.” The sight of Glover prompts Thompson’s Agent M to say, “Now that makes sense.”
The alien reveal goes back to the first 1997 “Men in Black,” which introduced the universe to sharp-dressed Agent J (Will Smith) and Agent K (Tommy Lee Jones).
In the original “Men in Black,” Agent J reveals that Dennis Rodman can pull in Chicago Bulls floor seats for the high consulate from planet Solaxiant IX, because “he’s from that planet.” To judge from his wild dress, Rodman wasn’t doing too much to hide his alien identity.
Agent K also informs Agent J that Elvis Presley is not dead: “He just went home.”
On the MIB monitoring screens, the “known aliens” included Al Roker, designer Isaac Mizrahi, Danny DeVito, Barry Sonnenfeld (the film’s director), Sylvester Stallone, Dionne Warwick, politician Newt Gingrich, author Tony Robbins and “Star Wars” creator George Lucas. No hard feelings: The franchise’s executive producer Steven Spielberg also is shown to be an alien.
Sonnenfeld sought permission from each luminary to be featured as an alien, except for Gingrich because there was public domain footage available of him. The director lamented the biggest star who said no to the request: Michael Jackson.
“Of course, the real aliens say no,” Sonnenfeld told Entertainment Weekly at the time.
2002’s “Men in Black II” featured Michael Jackson as an undercover MIB agent (not necessarily an alien), and flashed a shot of Martha Stewart on the surveillance screen.
By 2012, “Men in Black 3” went a step further, showing Microsoft creator Bill Gates as a “Brainoid” alien on the surveillance screen. Lady Gaga, Richard Branson, Justin Bieber, David Beckham and 7-foot-6 basketball star Yao Ming also make alien screen cameos.
None of these aliens have been called back to their respective planets.