What Happened to ‘23 Jump Street’?

It looks like Jonah Hill, Channing Tatum and Ice Cube are moving into 24 Jump Street.

However, after The Hollywood Reporter learned Wednesday that the threequel was in development at Sony Pictures, it begged the question: What happened to 23 Jump Street, as the last film in the action-comedy franchise was titled 22 Jump Street?

THR asked Sony for more information on the reason behind the new installment’s title, but did not hear back at the time of publication. Until the answer is revealed (and it honestly might not be until the film’s released), there are definitely a few justifications fans can speculate about.

For one, the creative team might be sticking to the meta nature of the franchise. Let me refresh your memory, as it has been more than a decade since the last installment came out. At the beginning of the 2014 pic, Jenko (Tatum) and Schmidt (Hill) learn that the Captain Dickson-led (Ice Cube) undercover police base has been moved across the street from the old Korean church at 21 Jump Street to the old Vietnamese church at the new address (the sequel’s title, wink wink).

“I can’t believe the Koreans bought their church back,” Jenko says as Schmidt adds, “Yeah, I mean good thing there was an even bigger abandoned church directly across the street.”

“Next year, we’ll probably just be right back across the street, just next door,” Tatum’s character jokes. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Hill’s character adds. The camera then pans to the vacant lot with a large sign that reads, “Coming soon 23 Jump St. condominiums.”

It’s safe to say those condominiums have likely been built in the past 12 years, so maybe the only vacant building or church for the next undercover operation headquarters was two doors down.

Another theory comes from a producer who worked on both the 2012 and 2014 films, and is set to produce the new installment. Neal H. Moritz shared the title page for the 24 Jump Street screenplay on his Instagram on Wednesday, which featured a subtitle that read, “It took so long to make we had to skip one.”

Moritz isn’t wrong as 12 years really is a lengthy amount of time between sequels, especially when the last one only took two years to make.

Fans will just have to wait and see what our favorite chaotic undercover cops duo get up to at 24 Jump Street, and if they really did go to medical school or enlisted as foreign exchange students, according to the sequence of fake movie sequels at the end of 22 Jump Street.

Rodney Rothman is set to direct the new movie from a script he wrote with Hill and Meghan Malloy. A release date has yet to be announced.