It’s a great time to be a fan of anime from yesteryear. It’s a good time to be a fan of anime in general, but if you watched certain shows in the past decades, they’re getting a resurgence big time. Last week we told you that FLCL is getting a follow-up, and from WonderCon we showed you the first glimpses of the new Voltron reboot. But now we have a trifecta with word that a live-action Japanese film of perennial favorite Fullmetal Alchemist is headed our way in 2017.
According to Japanese entertainment publication Daily Cyzo, a film of Hiromu Arakawa’s action-fantasy manga, which became two anime series in 2003 and 2009, is set to shoot in Italy from June to August of this year. The word is there will be heavy use of CGI to get all the magical elements from the manga.
The director for the film will be Fumihiko Sori, who directed the 2012 Dragon Age: Dawn of the Seeker movie, and it will star Ryosuke Yamada, a member of the J-pop group Hey! Say! JUMP, as Edward Elric. In order to get the setting right – an alternate Edwardian Era where magic and science coexist – the production will be shooting in Italy, home of gorgeous architecture and people like Leonardo da Vinci, a scientist and alchemist himself.
Fullmetal Alchemist the manga ran from 2001 to 2010 and followed the adventures of brothers Edward and Alphonse Elric who, in order to bring their mother back from the dead, resort to alchemy, which backfires, costing Edward his leg and Alphonse his whole body. Edward then exchanges his own arm for Alphonse’s soul which ends up in a massive suit of armor. They search for the Philosopher’s Stone in order to restore Alphonse’s body but nefarious baduns get in their way as Edward works as the state alchemist. How much of this gets into the movie is yet to be seen.
We’ve already seen a live-action adaptation of manga and anime Attack on Titan sort of fizzle out, so there’s no telling if a Fullmetal Alchemist movie will have a better go of it. On top of these, Hollywood is making a live action Ghost in the Shell with Scarlett Johansson, and that pesky Akira movie keeps getting bandied about, so we’ll definitely have a lot to contend with in the next couple of years.
What is your take on a Fullmetal Alchemist film? Let us know in the comments below!
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HT: Crunchy Roll
Image: FUNimation
Kyle Anderson is the Weekend Editor and a film and TV critic for Nerdist.com. Follow him on Twitter!
