Yeah I know, the rumor's been around forever, but now there's confirmation.
The Japanese animation studio Sunrise has officially announced the plans for a live-action film adaptation of its Cowboy Bebop science-fiction anime franchise. The American film studio Twentieth Century Fox, the production company 3 Arts Entertainment, and Sunrise itself are collaborating on the project. Keanu Reeves (The Matrix, A Scanner Darkly, Johnny Mnemonic) is slated to star. Joshua Long is acting as a production supervisor, and Erwin Stoff, a film producer who worked closely with Reeves on The Matrix and A Scanner Darkly, is also attached. The associate producers are Sunrise President Kenji Uchida, the original Cowboy Bebop director Shinichiro Watanabe, and the original series script supervisor Keiko Nobumoto. The Sunrise studio itself and Masahiko Minami (former Sunrise producer and BONES studio co-founder) are both acting as production consultants.
Stoff first revealed the existence of the proposed project last July to the IFMagazine.com entertainment website after the parties "just signed it the other day." Reeves confirmed the plans and his intentions to play the lead role with MTV Movies Blog last month. He also indicated that the preliminary story outline partly draws inspiration from the "Red Eye" storyline from the first episode of the animated series. Reeves and Watanabe had previously worked together on the "Kid's Story" segment of The Animatrix animated video anthology.
Watanabe's original Cowboy Bebop series follows the motley crew of the spaceship Bebop as it travels throughout the solar system in search of the next job. The anime distributor Bandai Entertainment and Cartoon Network's Adult Swim programming block released the 1998 television series in the United States, and Sony Pictures Home Entertainment released the subsequent 2001 animated movie. The anime was also adapted into two separate manga series, and Tokyopop released both manga series in North America.
Mayabird is my girlfriend
Justice League:BotM:MM:SDnet City Watch:Cybertron's Finest "Well then, science is bullshit. "
-revprez, with yet another brilliant rebuttal.
Why oh WHY did Heath Ledger go and kill himself? One of those fucking annoying kids from Disney's The Suite Life would be a better choice!
The only people who were safe were the legion; after one of their AT-ATs got painted dayglo pink with scarlet go faster stripes, they identified the perpetrators and exacted revenge. - Eleventh Century Remnant
It is DEAD to me, I can conceive of no way for this to actually make me want to go see it, just reading how they plan to develop BeBop for the big screen makes me physically ill.
Praying is another way of doing nothing helpful
"Congratulations, you get a cookie. You almost got a fundamental English word correct." Pick
"Outlaw star has spaceships that punch eachother" Joviwan Read "Tales From The Crossroads"! Read "One Wrong Turn"!
I know Keanu has been supposedly dying to play Spike for years, but he's definitely on the wrong side of 40 for the role. It might have worked better if they made this before the Matrix sequels (the whole movie is still a terrible idea), but by the time they actually get around to production in a couple years he'll be pushing closer to 50.
I believe in a sign of Zeta.
[BOTM|WG|JL|Mecha Maniacs|Pax Cybertronia|Veteran of the Psychic Wars|Eva Expert]
"And besides, who cares if a monster destroys Australia?"
Vympel wrote:I still don't know why anyone would watch a show with such a dumbassed name, sorry.
Pfft, like most entertainment have good names .
Still as annoucements go, I sadly kinda figured this rumor would become true. Live action anime is something that sounds worse on paper then live action comic books. Now all we need is Keanu to be Kaneda.
MM /CF/WG/BOTM/JL/Original Warsie/ACPATHNTDWATGODW FOREVER!!
Sometimes we can choose the path we follow. Sometimes our choices are made for us. And sometimes we have no choice at all
Keanu Reeves will star in a bigscreen, live-action version of Japanese anime TV series 'Cowboy Bebop' for Fox
Emphasis added.
This picture is now dead in the water unless a trailer proves otherwise.
ISARMA: Daikaiju Coordinator: Just Add Radiation Justice League- Molly Hayes: Respect Hats or Freakin' Else! Browncoat Supernatural Taisen - "[This Story] is essentially "Wouldn't it be awesome if this happened?" Followed by explosions."
Reviewing movies is a lot like Paleontology: The Evidence is there...but no one seems to agree upon it.
"God! Are you so bored that you enjoy seeing us humans suffer?! Why can't you let this poor man live happily with his son! What kind of God are you, crushing us like ants?!" - Kyoami, Ran
If they can get good actors for Faye and Jet, then it still might turn out pretty good. Still, Reeves is a little too . . settled to be Spike. Spike had a bit of an attitude to him - can you imagine Reeves saying, "Did I ever tell you that there are three things I particularly hate - kids, animals, and women with attitudes - and now you've got all of them conveniently on MY ship?" without coming off flat?
“It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not a weakness. That is life.” -Jean-Luc Picard
"Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them." -Margaret Atwood
TempestSong wrote:Well, it could be worse. They could be making a live-action Evangelion.
Isn't someone still mucking around with that project, by any chance?
ADV Films was developing it, but there's been no word on it for the last couple of years. And even if they're still game, it won't be happening anytime soon given their current financial troubles.
Motherfuck. The series (and the animated movie) was so good. Why would they do this? *sigh*
"I wish I wish I hadn't killed that fish." - Homer Simpson
Huh. That's less than 10 condoms per person. Though, assuming an even split between gender, that's almost 20 condoms per penis, so I certainly hope that would suffice for the three weeks they're there. -Alferd Packer
There could be worse actors for the part.... I cant think of any off the top of my head ATM, but Im sure there are.
Any idea who they're looking at for Jet, Faye, and Ed?
"Siege warfare, French for spawn camp" WTYP podcast
It's so bad it wraps back around to awesome then back to bad again, then back to halfway between awesome and bad. Like if ed wood directed a godzilla movie - Duckie
Well, Spike does know kung fu. I hope the eventual bombing of the Dragonball movie gets Hollywood off this live action anime kick. It doesn't even work for Japan. Cutey Honey and CASSHERN are perfect examples of this.
VF5SS wrote:Well, Spike does know kung fu. I hope the eventual bombing of the Dragonball movie gets Hollywood off this live action anime kick. It doesn't even work for Japan. Cutey Honey and CASSHERN are perfect examples of this.
Nope, they need to rape Evangelion before they stop Hollywood anime adaptations.
Those gun nuts do not understand the meaning of "overkill," and will simply use weapon after weapon of mass destruction (WMD) until the monster is dead, or until they run out of weapons.
They have more WMD than there are monsters for us to fight. (More insanity here.)
This may have been workable when Keanu was doing stuff in the mid/early nineties, but now, even with knowing kung fu (which isn't jeet kun do anyway), it doesn't fit. He's too old and typecast more as playing a guy who doesn't have facial muscles.
Even if Jet and Faye-Faye turn out to be golden and just as the series, I don't see this working. I've had my hopes dashed over adaptations before, namely HDM, so I'm getting sick of Hollywood raping perfectly fine originals.
What's the Japanese word for FUBAR? It would describe this situation perfectly.
