Legendary Pictures is working on a live-action movie adaption of Sunrise’s very popular anime Gundam for Netflix. Kong: Skull Island director Jordan Vogt-Roberts will direct the film. Brian K. Vaughn is writing the script of the upcoming mecha movie.
The story for the live-action film version of Gundam is being kept under wraps but 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. The battles in the story, in which the characters pilot robots known as mobile suits, are wildly popular. The Gundam universe is replete with numerous storylines of love and conflict along with the popular Gundam battles, in which the characters operate robot suits called Mobile Suits.
The massively popular Mecha anime and science fiction media franchise is Sunrise’s multi-billion-dollar property that was created in 1979 and has spawned a multi-platform universe encompassing televised anime, manga, animated films, video games, plastic models, toys, and novels among other media. Gundam continues to dominate Bandai Namco’s earnings almost forty years after its inception.
The upcoming live-action Gundam film will be available on Netflix everywhere except China, where it will be available in theatres.