Franchise Ownership Acquisition: The series started under Malibu comics, but upon its liquidation following bankruptcy in 1994, Marvel Comics bought Men in Black and other franchises that had been owned by the defunct company. Marvel has reprinted the prior issues as well making tie-in comics for other adaptions such as the movies and animated series.
Writer Lowell Cunningham also made various famous comic books apart of MIB, like the Alien Nation adaptation and spin-offs (first on DC Comics and later on Malibu Comics) and the independent series Jack Ooze in 2012. Also, he made various Star Wars parody shorts with John Hudgens in the Turn of the Millennium.
Artist Sandy Carruthers worked in many other projects, including Captain Canuck, as a cartoonist on Charlottetown Guardian (a local newspaper), various graphic novels for the comic book division of Lerner Publisher Group and his own webcomic in the 2000s called Canadiana: New Spirit of Canada, becoming his other successful hit apart of MIB. Recently had been working on a revival of Charlton Comics and as part of Sandstone Comics since 2018.
The publisher itself, Aircel Comics, was a famous independent comic book publisher in The '80s that made other famous titles in its homeland Canada like Warlock 5, Elflord and Cat & Mouse. But it was also known for make comic book adaptations of porn films, being the Cult Classic series Debbie Does Dallas and the porn parody Flesh Gordon some of its most known titles, as well its original series Leather & Lace.
Accent Depundent: MIB agents are given code names taken from the alphabet. For some reason, however, the head agent, Z, is referred to as "Zed" rather than "Zee" which doesn't makes sense to those who are not aware of the UK/Canadian pronunciation of the letter.
Vincent D'Onofrio plays Edgar the farmer and the bug who wears Edgar's skin as a suit.
There are three cases of this in the Latin American Spanish dub:
Arturo Mercado voices both Rosenburg (in his alien form) and Jack Jeebs.
Ricardo Mendoza voices both Newton and the alien perp that J chases in the beginning.
Pedro D'Aguillón Jr. voices one of the border policemen in the beginning (the one that gets covered in Mikey's blood) and the street vendor that tells Edgar where to find dead bodies.
The Cast Showoff: Tommy Lee Jones speaks fluent Spanish in real life, having grown up in Texas, and it shows in the opening scene when K questions all of the Mexicans attempting to cross the border (and trying to smoke out the one who's really an alien).
Corpsing: When K does a literal shakedown investigation on Frank, it's pretty clear Tommy Lee Jones is struggling not to laugh, with a few smirks slipping in.
Enforced Method Acting: Tommy Lee Jones was not amused by the script he was given, so he ad-libbed a good deal of his dialogue. Look closely enough and you can see Will Smith trying to keep up, as expected of the fresh recruit. The resulting synergy is well over half the movie's charm.
Ray-Ban's Predator 2 sunglasses tripled in sales after Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones wore them in this movie.
The triangular Hamilton “Ventura” watch is another example, playing upon the Mid-Century Modern design aesthetic of the MIB and their headquarters.
Science Marches On: A minor one. When J heads to the morgue to retrieve Orion, he hilariously tries to convince Laurel that the cat is a witness in a murder investigation, unaware she's being held hostage by Edgar. Fast forward about ten years and advancements in forensic science mean that animals who 'witness' a murder can be checked for any forensic evidence the killer may have left behind.
Sequel in Another Medium: Retribution, the comic book which picks up where the first movie ended.
Stunt Double: In one Agent K drives the car up the walls and onto the ceiling of a tunnel, and J, not wearing a seatbelt, flips over—and in a rather infamous blooper, briefly gets a stunt-double-induced Race Lift.
Technology Marches On: K shows J a small alien disc and says "They're going to replace CDs soon". At this point, it's doubtful. It was based on Sony's MiniDisc, which did indeed fail to be the wave of the future. Also, J's introduction is him chasing down an alien on foot to arrest him. These days, the fleeing suspect probably would have been tazed, ending the chase rather quickly.
The scene where Mikey gets killed at the beginning of the film was not originally planned. The creators added it in because they realized that most people would have sympathized with Mikey had he died as is, and wanted to ensure no sympathy was to be gained for him prior to being killed.
Will Smith's line "It just be rainin' black people in New York!" was improvised but so hilarious that they decided to leave it in.
In fact, a lot of the lines were this. Tommy Lee Jones was famously dissatisfied with the script and so he took it upon himself to "fix" it by ad-libbing a good deal of his dialogue and one-liners. The result was Will Smith, not to be outdone, having to play along too. It was hilarious enough that Barry Sonnenfeld just didn't care and threw it ALL in. And the movie ended up being praised for its witty dialogue, in case you needed more proof how awesome Tommy Lee Jones is. It helps tremendously that "K" being the senior agent and "J" struggling to keep up makes it more believable.
The little alien in the mech body was first written for earlier in the film. Originally, K introduced J to a bartender, who would lift his face up to reveal a body made of light. Then Phil Tippet had the idea to have his face open to reveal a pilot. Everyone liked the idea so much they moved the idea and made it plot-relevant.
John Landis and Quentin Tarantino were approached to direct the movie before Barry Sonnenfeld was hired. Landis turned down the offer due to him considering the film to be "The Blues Brothers with aliens", but later regretted his decision after seeing how successful the movie turned out.
Originally, there were going to be two alien ships looming over the Earth, demanding the return of the galaxy: the Arquillian ship, and a Baltian ship (Rosenberg was originally a Baltian in the script). Edgar came to Earth to deliberately start a war between the two races, said to be negotiating peace, so he and his fellow bugs can feed off the resulting war. The initial volley is compared to two gunslingers using a giant rock as cover. Eventually, they decided the Baltians were not necessary to the plot, so some work was done in post-production (dubbing the aliens' conversation into "alienspeak", for one), and long story short, Rosenberg became an Arquillian.
Originally, the Bug's true form was going to be portrayed by a puppet, but it wouldn't have been able to move around and fight. To have a more exciting final showdown, they spent 4.5 million dollars creating a CGI Bug.
The movie wasn't originally going to be set in New York, but Barry Sonnenfeld decided to change it because he believed that aliens would most likely be drawn to New York because nobody would notice their weirdness.
The ending was originally going to be a philosophical debate between J and Edgar.
According to the script, the giant marble at the end is meant to contain our entire Universe. In the final product, it only seems to hold the Milky Way galaxy. Why is unknown, although it could just be that the animator didn't know the difference between a galaxy and universe.
, the giant marble at the end is meant to contain our entire Universe. In the final product,