Live-Action Anime Updates
Robotech
Major Players: Tobey Maguire (producer/star), Akiva Goldsman and Charles Roven (producers)
Studio: Warner Bros.
A live-action adaptation of Robotech was announced as far back as 2007 when Warner Bros. and Spider-Man himself, Tobey Maguire, secured the rights to the property. The Hollywood Reporter, which broke the news, described the film as a "sprawling sci-fi epic," and revealed that it takes place at a time when Earth has developed giant robots from the technology on an alien spacecraft that crashed on a South Pacific isle. Mankind is forced to use the technology to fend off three successive waves of alien invasions. The first invasion concerns a battle with a race of giant warriors who seek to retrieve their flagship's energy source known as "protoculture," and the planet's survival ends up in the hands of two young pilots.
Speculation at the time put Maguire as protagonist Rick Hunter, a rumor which has still yet to be confirmed. But that didn't stop IGN from envisioning our own Robotech Casting Call for the film. Regardless, Maguire would produce alongside Akiva Goldsman and The Dark Knight producer Charles Roven.
The film's script was initially set to be penned by Craig Zahler, who had crafted a well-received, but as-yet-unproduced, script called The Brigands of Rattleborge -- a dark, violent Western picked up by Vertigo Entertainment. Six months later, however, reports were already beginning to circulate of a new writer, Star Wars and Indiana Jones vet Lawrence Kasdan, fueling speculation that the writer/director might helm the eventual adaptation. Reports indicate that Kasdan completed a draft before news broke in November 2008 that Warner had approached another set of writers, this time the duo of Alfred Gough and Miles Millar, known for their work on Smallville.
The information well has dried up over the last several months, but with a new script in the works, we're hoping to hear more very soon.
Akira
Major Players: Leonardo DiCaprio (producer), Greg Whitta (writer)
Studio: Warner Bros.
Word of a live-action Akira remake has been floating around for nearly a decade. Back in 2002, Variety had announced that Warner Bros. had snagged the film rights to the 1988 sci-fi classic and would move ahead with Blade director Stephen Norrington at the helm. Despite the inevitable hate from the fan community, progress seemed positive until Norrington emerged from the hell that was The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and eventually quit the film.
Several months later, Warner Bros. announced that Irish helmer Ruairi Robinson would take up the reins on the production, which would be his first official feature after an impressive debut with his short film Silent City. Early in 2008, Leonardo DiCaprio's production company Appian Way came onboard the project as the studio announced that Akira would now be comprised of two feature films. The conclusion of last year saw DiCaprio making the rounds about Akira and yet another anime adaptation, Ninja Scroll, stating that he would star in neither. He did confirm that writer Greg Whitta was, as early as November of 2008, on his final draft of the project, but made no mention of the second proposed film. We continue to await word on the film's progress.
Ghost in the Shell
Major Players: Steven Spielberg, Avi Arad (producers)
Studio: DreamWorks
Hot damn if 2007 wasn't the year of the live-action anime announcement, kicking off with news that Production I.G., the animation studio behind the Ghost in the Shell film and TV series, had acquired the live-action feature rights to the property. Nearly a year later, DreamWorks snapped up the option after a battle with Universal and Sony, but the power of Spielberg won the day.
"Ghost in the Shell is one of my favorite stories. It's a genre that has arrived, and we enthusiastically welcome it to DreamWorks," said the Jaws helmer, announcing that writer Jamie Moss (Street Kings) would script the adaptation with an eye on creating a 3-D, live-action telling of the film. Later that year, at 2008's San Diego Comic-Con, producer Steven Paul (Ghost Rider) continued to push the technology, stating, "We're going to do it as a 3-D film. So it's something that he's really pushing to help get more theaters built into 3-D, using Ghost in the Shell right now as a symbol that you need to get more 3-D theaters."
The futuristic cyberpunk series revolves around the half-machine/half-woman Motoko Kusanagi, a member of the covert ops agency Section 9, which focuses on crimes related to technology. Expect more info on the adaptation soon.
Battle Angel
Major Players: James Cameron (writer/director)
Studio: TBD
Prior to his commitment to Avatar, James Cameron had his sights set on a live-action version of Battle Angel Alita. As early as 2004, Cameron was speaking about the film much the same way he's currently speaking about Avatar, advocating the 3-D approach and saying, "We've upgraded the technology...We'll use it on the feature, which we're in pre-production for right now. It's called Battle Angel and it's a big science fiction film." Then came the mysterious Project 880, originally thought to be the codename for Battle Angel, but later revealed to be the beginnings of what we now know as Avatar. Cameron later cleared up the matter, addressing the differences between the two projects.
Avatar, based on a script treatment Cameron wrote years ago, is the story of an interplanetary war, a love story, and strange aliens that manifest themselves by using humans as their avatars. It sounds like a remarkable departure from anything Hollywood has produced lately, and even Cameron himself described the film to Business Week as "completely crazy, balls-out sci-fi". The director also has plans to tie the film in with a massively multiplayer online role-playing game.
Cameron's other sci-fi project, Battle Angel, he envisions as a "three-year cycle", an epic trilogy. It's based on a Japanese manga series and tells the story of a 14-year-old cyborg in the 26th century.
Aside from a brief mention that Battle may have been postponed in favor of Avatar due to Schwarzenegger's re-election, we've heard relatively little about the film, and we suspect it'll be awhile before we hear any more. At least until after the impending release of Avatar.
Astro Boy
Major Players: Nicholas Cage, Freddie Highmore, Kristen Bell (stars)
Studio: Summit / ImagiAnimation
The first mention of an Astro Boy adaptation came in late 2007 when Variety announced a vaguely detailed agreement had been struck between Japan's ImagiAnimation Studios, Warner Bros. and The Weinstein Company. Budgeted around $40 million and slated for a 2009 release, Astro Boy's chosen director, Colin Brady, promised a CG-animated film that would tell more of an origin story. Brady stated, "Similar to Spider-Man or the first Superman, it makes sense to start with the origin story. Although I admit that I thought it would be fun to simply start with the sequel. Astro Boy is kind of a dark Pinocchio story, but unlike Pinocchio, Astro never can become real flesh and blood…We will present Astro's story as more of an epic sci-fi fantasy. Although Astro is a robot, there's a deep dark human struggle that we're exploring."
2008 saw a number of casting announcements, first and foremost unveiling Willy Wonka's Freddie Highmore as the voice of the title role. Next up came Veronica Mars herself, Kristen Bell, as well as superstar Nicholas Cage, who commented upon his role by revealing, "I play the mad scientist father who creates Astro Boy and it is an animated movie. Astro Boy was just one of those marvelous, iconic cartoon characters that I grew up with and fell in love with because the character is so endearing and yet so powerful."
The conclusion of the year offered up a firm release date with an announcement by Rob Friedman, CEO of Summit Entertainment, that the film would debut on October 23, 2009. Good news for anime geeks, until, of course, the new year brought news that the project had been put on indefinite hold due to Summit's financial issues, rumors which were proven only half true by assurances that after a quick sojurn to find bridge financing, the film would hold to its October 2009 release date.
IGN's own Eric Moro last checked in with the film when hosting Summit's NYCC '09 panel, where Moro and IGN unveiled a number of brand new images that blew audiences away. Fortunately, everything seems on track for a release later this year.
The Last Airbender
Major Players: M. Night Syamalan (writer/director)
Studio: Paramount / MTV Films
Development on M. Night Shyamalan's adaptation of Avatar: The Last Airbender has progressed quickly, tracing its roots back to a January 2007 announcement that the writer/director would produce the film under a deal with Paramount and MTV Films. This sparked an initial battle of names between Airbender and James Cameron's similarly titled Avatar. Shyamalan spoke a bit about the film on the anime's DVD release, hinting at a trilogy by stating, "I think I've got to a place where I really know how to bring in the characters, and what characters I can save for the other movies, and what moments we can save for the other movies. So it's really starting to take shape into a two-hour movie and I think that will happen for each of the three movies."
The latest news has come from the casting department with reports that Shyamalan has cast the film with a mixture of unknowns and major names including karate star Noah Ringer as Aang and Jackson Rathbone (Twilight) as Sokka. The director recently added three more -- Aasif Mandvi, Shaun Toub and Cliff Curtis - with Mandvi being perhaps the most recognizable from his role as a correspondent for The Daily Show and Toub having most recently appeared in Iron Man. Production is currently underway for a July 2010 release.
Ninja Scroll
Major Players: Leonardo DiCaprio (producer), Alex Tse
Studio: Warner Bros.
Not much to say on the Ninja Scroll front since the initial announcement that Watchmen co-writer Alex Tse had been tapped to pen the adaptation. The 1993 original -- which is set in feudal Japan and revolves around a ninja who must battle eight demonic warriors to save the land -- is one of the most popular animes of all time. The film was the brainchild of critically acclaimed director/writer Yoshiaki Kawajiri. Leonardo Diacaprio, through his Appian Way production company, is set to produce, adding the second anime film to his roster next to the adaptation of Akira.
Rumors, however, are beginning to swirl that DiCaprio is eyeing the five members of a Japanese pop group SMAP -- Masahiro Nakai, Takuya Kimura, Tsuyoshi Kusanagi, Goro Inagaki and Shingo Katori - to star in the film. Each member has previously acted in Japanese anime adaptations and fulfills DiCaprio's aim for authenticity in the film's casting. Stay tuned to for more as development continues.
SOURCE
Major Players: Tobey Maguire (producer/star), Akiva Goldsman and Charles Roven (producers)
Studio: Warner Bros.
A live-action adaptation of Robotech was announced as far back as 2007 when Warner Bros. and Spider-Man himself, Tobey Maguire, secured the rights to the property. The Hollywood Reporter, which broke the news, described the film as a "sprawling sci-fi epic," and revealed that it takes place at a time when Earth has developed giant robots from the technology on an alien spacecraft that crashed on a South Pacific isle. Mankind is forced to use the technology to fend off three successive waves of alien invasions. The first invasion concerns a battle with a race of giant warriors who seek to retrieve their flagship's energy source known as "protoculture," and the planet's survival ends up in the hands of two young pilots.
Speculation at the time put Maguire as protagonist Rick Hunter, a rumor which has still yet to be confirmed. But that didn't stop IGN from envisioning our own Robotech Casting Call for the film. Regardless, Maguire would produce alongside Akiva Goldsman and The Dark Knight producer Charles Roven.
The film's script was initially set to be penned by Craig Zahler, who had crafted a well-received, but as-yet-unproduced, script called The Brigands of Rattleborge -- a dark, violent Western picked up by Vertigo Entertainment. Six months later, however, reports were already beginning to circulate of a new writer, Star Wars and Indiana Jones vet Lawrence Kasdan, fueling speculation that the writer/director might helm the eventual adaptation. Reports indicate that Kasdan completed a draft before news broke in November 2008 that Warner had approached another set of writers, this time the duo of Alfred Gough and Miles Millar, known for their work on Smallville.
The information well has dried up over the last several months, but with a new script in the works, we're hoping to hear more very soon.
Akira
Major Players: Leonardo DiCaprio (producer), Greg Whitta (writer)
Studio: Warner Bros.
Word of a live-action Akira remake has been floating around for nearly a decade. Back in 2002, Variety had announced that Warner Bros. had snagged the film rights to the 1988 sci-fi classic and would move ahead with Blade director Stephen Norrington at the helm. Despite the inevitable hate from the fan community, progress seemed positive until Norrington emerged from the hell that was The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and eventually quit the film.
Several months later, Warner Bros. announced that Irish helmer Ruairi Robinson would take up the reins on the production, which would be his first official feature after an impressive debut with his short film Silent City. Early in 2008, Leonardo DiCaprio's production company Appian Way came onboard the project as the studio announced that Akira would now be comprised of two feature films. The conclusion of last year saw DiCaprio making the rounds about Akira and yet another anime adaptation, Ninja Scroll, stating that he would star in neither. He did confirm that writer Greg Whitta was, as early as November of 2008, on his final draft of the project, but made no mention of the second proposed film. We continue to await word on the film's progress.
Ghost in the Shell
Major Players: Steven Spielberg, Avi Arad (producers)
Studio: DreamWorks
Hot damn if 2007 wasn't the year of the live-action anime announcement, kicking off with news that Production I.G., the animation studio behind the Ghost in the Shell film and TV series, had acquired the live-action feature rights to the property. Nearly a year later, DreamWorks snapped up the option after a battle with Universal and Sony, but the power of Spielberg won the day.
"Ghost in the Shell is one of my favorite stories. It's a genre that has arrived, and we enthusiastically welcome it to DreamWorks," said the Jaws helmer, announcing that writer Jamie Moss (Street Kings) would script the adaptation with an eye on creating a 3-D, live-action telling of the film. Later that year, at 2008's San Diego Comic-Con, producer Steven Paul (Ghost Rider) continued to push the technology, stating, "We're going to do it as a 3-D film. So it's something that he's really pushing to help get more theaters built into 3-D, using Ghost in the Shell right now as a symbol that you need to get more 3-D theaters."
The futuristic cyberpunk series revolves around the half-machine/half-woman Motoko Kusanagi, a member of the covert ops agency Section 9, which focuses on crimes related to technology. Expect more info on the adaptation soon.
Battle Angel
Major Players: James Cameron (writer/director)
Studio: TBD
Prior to his commitment to Avatar, James Cameron had his sights set on a live-action version of Battle Angel Alita. As early as 2004, Cameron was speaking about the film much the same way he's currently speaking about Avatar, advocating the 3-D approach and saying, "We've upgraded the technology...We'll use it on the feature, which we're in pre-production for right now. It's called Battle Angel and it's a big science fiction film." Then came the mysterious Project 880, originally thought to be the codename for Battle Angel, but later revealed to be the beginnings of what we now know as Avatar. Cameron later cleared up the matter, addressing the differences between the two projects.
Avatar, based on a script treatment Cameron wrote years ago, is the story of an interplanetary war, a love story, and strange aliens that manifest themselves by using humans as their avatars. It sounds like a remarkable departure from anything Hollywood has produced lately, and even Cameron himself described the film to Business Week as "completely crazy, balls-out sci-fi". The director also has plans to tie the film in with a massively multiplayer online role-playing game.
Cameron's other sci-fi project, Battle Angel, he envisions as a "three-year cycle", an epic trilogy. It's based on a Japanese manga series and tells the story of a 14-year-old cyborg in the 26th century.
Aside from a brief mention that Battle may have been postponed in favor of Avatar due to Schwarzenegger's re-election, we've heard relatively little about the film, and we suspect it'll be awhile before we hear any more. At least until after the impending release of Avatar.
Astro Boy
Major Players: Nicholas Cage, Freddie Highmore, Kristen Bell (stars)
Studio: Summit / ImagiAnimation
The first mention of an Astro Boy adaptation came in late 2007 when Variety announced a vaguely detailed agreement had been struck between Japan's ImagiAnimation Studios, Warner Bros. and The Weinstein Company. Budgeted around $40 million and slated for a 2009 release, Astro Boy's chosen director, Colin Brady, promised a CG-animated film that would tell more of an origin story. Brady stated, "Similar to Spider-Man or the first Superman, it makes sense to start with the origin story. Although I admit that I thought it would be fun to simply start with the sequel. Astro Boy is kind of a dark Pinocchio story, but unlike Pinocchio, Astro never can become real flesh and blood…We will present Astro's story as more of an epic sci-fi fantasy. Although Astro is a robot, there's a deep dark human struggle that we're exploring."
2008 saw a number of casting announcements, first and foremost unveiling Willy Wonka's Freddie Highmore as the voice of the title role. Next up came Veronica Mars herself, Kristen Bell, as well as superstar Nicholas Cage, who commented upon his role by revealing, "I play the mad scientist father who creates Astro Boy and it is an animated movie. Astro Boy was just one of those marvelous, iconic cartoon characters that I grew up with and fell in love with because the character is so endearing and yet so powerful."
The conclusion of the year offered up a firm release date with an announcement by Rob Friedman, CEO of Summit Entertainment, that the film would debut on October 23, 2009. Good news for anime geeks, until, of course, the new year brought news that the project had been put on indefinite hold due to Summit's financial issues, rumors which were proven only half true by assurances that after a quick sojurn to find bridge financing, the film would hold to its October 2009 release date.
IGN's own Eric Moro last checked in with the film when hosting Summit's NYCC '09 panel, where Moro and IGN unveiled a number of brand new images that blew audiences away. Fortunately, everything seems on track for a release later this year.
The Last Airbender
Major Players: M. Night Syamalan (writer/director)
Studio: Paramount / MTV Films
Development on M. Night Shyamalan's adaptation of Avatar: The Last Airbender has progressed quickly, tracing its roots back to a January 2007 announcement that the writer/director would produce the film under a deal with Paramount and MTV Films. This sparked an initial battle of names between Airbender and James Cameron's similarly titled Avatar. Shyamalan spoke a bit about the film on the anime's DVD release, hinting at a trilogy by stating, "I think I've got to a place where I really know how to bring in the characters, and what characters I can save for the other movies, and what moments we can save for the other movies. So it's really starting to take shape into a two-hour movie and I think that will happen for each of the three movies."
The latest news has come from the casting department with reports that Shyamalan has cast the film with a mixture of unknowns and major names including karate star Noah Ringer as Aang and Jackson Rathbone (Twilight) as Sokka. The director recently added three more -- Aasif Mandvi, Shaun Toub and Cliff Curtis - with Mandvi being perhaps the most recognizable from his role as a correspondent for The Daily Show and Toub having most recently appeared in Iron Man. Production is currently underway for a July 2010 release.
Ninja Scroll
Major Players: Leonardo DiCaprio (producer), Alex Tse
Studio: Warner Bros.
Not much to say on the Ninja Scroll front since the initial announcement that Watchmen co-writer Alex Tse had been tapped to pen the adaptation. The 1993 original -- which is set in feudal Japan and revolves around a ninja who must battle eight demonic warriors to save the land -- is one of the most popular animes of all time. The film was the brainchild of critically acclaimed director/writer Yoshiaki Kawajiri. Leonardo Diacaprio, through his Appian Way production company, is set to produce, adding the second anime film to his roster next to the adaptation of Akira.
Rumors, however, are beginning to swirl that DiCaprio is eyeing the five members of a Japanese pop group SMAP -- Masahiro Nakai, Takuya Kimura, Tsuyoshi Kusanagi, Goro Inagaki and Shingo Katori - to star in the film. Each member has previously acted in Japanese anime adaptations and fulfills DiCaprio's aim for authenticity in the film's casting. Stay tuned to for more as development continues.
SOURCE