There have been developments afoot for the new Men in Black movie that Sony are planning, and the news could leave some fans relieved and others disappointed.

The new film will be the fourth Men in Black movie, with Men in Black 3 having been released in 2012, and though, at one point, the plan was reportedly that it would serve as a crossover with 21 Jump Street, that idea has since been abandoned.

The latest instalment in the series about the agents of a secret organisation that supervises and hides extraterrestrial lifeforms on Earth, having to take care of them when they get unruly, is now being dubbed a spin-off as original actors Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones will not star in it (Aww!).

Sony Pictures has fast tracked the release date of the film to May 17th 2019.

The flick also now has writers in Matt Holloway & Art Marcum, whose credits include Iron Man and Transformers: The Last Knight. According to Deadline, the scribes will be “focusing on new characters chasing villains that put the picture on more of a global scale than the two previous films. The ambition is akin to the way that Jurassic World rebooted and expanded that franchise.”