We have four magic words for you: Live-action Gundam movie.
Gundam is an icon of the mecha anime genre, kicking off with the Mobile Suit Gundam TV series in 1979. Initially conceived as a children’s animated show with easily merchandizable robot toys—later expanding into a huge franchise of comics, games, and animated movies—it’s roughly equivalent to Transformers in Japan.
Announced at Anime Expo this weekend, Legendary Entertainment is developing a live-action Gundam movie. This is the same company that in recent years brought us Kong: Skull Island, Pacific Rim: Uprising, and Jurassic World. We can safely assume the Pacific Rim movies paved the way for Gundam to get a Hollywood remake.
Legendary hasn’t revealed a specific premise yet, but a press release shared by io9 suggests it will take inspiration from the main “Universal Century” timeline.
“The original Gundam series is set in the Universal Century, an era in which humanity’s growing population has led people to emigrate to space colonies. Eventually, the people living in the colonies seek their autonomy, and launch a war of independence against the people living on Earth. Through the tragedies and discord arising from this human conflict, not only the maturation of the main character, but also the intentions of enemies and the surrounding people are sensitively depicted.”
Hollywood has a rather dubious history with live-action anime adaptations, with recent efforts including racist casting choices (Ghost in the Shell) and plain old bad filmmaking (Death Note). Hopefully it’s harder to screw up the simple pleasure of giant robotic mech-suits.
H/T io9