Space Jam appears to have eerily foreshadowed the NBA's sweeping move to suspend the season on Wednesday after the league announced that a Utah Jazz player tested positive for coronavirus.
Social media users quickly pointed out a memorable plot point in the 1996 film, which revolves around the Looney Tunes enlisting Michael Jordan to help them earn their freedom in a basketball match even though he's retired. In the movie, the NBA season was also suspended after players like Charles Barkley and Patrick Ewing appeared to be infected with a mysterious illness that robbed them of their talent. In one scene, their fellow NBA players refuse to get dressed in the locker room because they're scared of "germs."
"Bacteria like that can travel faster than the speed of light," one player says after the worried group is told the infected cases are in New York, over 3,000 miles away.
In another scene, the NBA commissioner tells the media he is suspending the season indefinitely, causing shock and uproar.
"After meeting with team owners, I have decided until we can guarantee the health and safety of our NBA players, there will be no more basketball this season," he says.
More social media users pointed out that Space Jam came out on VHS and DVD on March 11, 1997 -- exactly 23 years before the NBA announced they were suspending the current season.
In yet another case of coincidental foreshadowing in the entertainment world, social media users quickly pointed out on Wednesday after Tom Hanks announced that he and his wife, Rita Wilson, have tested positive for coronavirus, a scene in 2007's The Simpsons Movie. Hanks made a cameo in the film, asking people to leave him alone, similar to the beloved actor now being in quarantine.
"This is Tom Hanks saying if you see me in person, please, leave me be," he says in the flick.
For more on 63-year-old Hanks' shocking announcement on Wednesday, watch the video below:
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