It was less than two months ago that news broke that the long in development Robotech movie, based on the American adaptation of three distinct anime series from back in the 80s, was back at Warner Brothers. Well, a lot can change in a couple of months, especially in Hollywood. It’s now being reported that Robotech is being fast-tracked, over at Sony Pictures, not Warner Bros.
Robotech has been in “development hell” for years now. At one point, Tobey Maguire and Akiva Goldsman came on board as producers. Over the years, the Robotech movie had interest from people like Leonardo DiCaprio, Lawrence Kasdan, and most recently, commercial director Nic Mathieu, but Warner Brothers decided to not move forward with a feature film. When the rights to Robotech became free again, they were acquired by producers Gianni Nunnari and Mark Canton, who were responsible for 300 and The Immortals. They then brought the project over to Sony. Frank Agrama of Harmony Gold, who distributed the cartoon series via syndication in the 80s, will executive produce.
According to Sony’s Michael De Luca, “Robotech is unique in that it has always been a marriage of spectacle with human characters that seem drawn from life. With a history that offers an epic love triangle, a renegade hero, and a world on the brink of extinction, Robotech offers a wide scope and a rich and impressive universe where the story possibilities are endless.â€
In a statement, Nunnari said, “When the rights to Robotech became available we jumped. Mark and I knew it had what big movies in today’s world must have if they want to grab everyone: insane visuals and powerful themes; the characters in Robotech wrestle with both the destructive and redemptive powers of technology; nothing is more relevant today than that.†The 85 episode run of Robotech has more than enough story to mine decades worth of movie if handled right; now we just wait and see if Sony is more invested in this untapped gold mine than Warner Bros. was.
HT:Â Variety
My reply to the WB announcement last month:
“If they make a Robotech movie based on the bastardized EU they created? I’m fine with that. Let it become its own thing.
To continue to pimp it using characters from the Macross saga makes it seem like they’re doing a live action movie based on that. I’m NOT fine with that.
And I’ll say, considering the Robotech Academy Kickstarter fell flat, the franchise is gasping for air (my opinion).
As always, let the Japanese handle it when they decide it’s time. They’re better at converting anime to live action.”
Still stand by this.
I am really excited for this if they can do it right. What I loved most about Robotech were the Love Triangles. Favorite of all was between Rick, Minmae, and Lisa. The character interactions made the story. When Harmony Gold did a down and dirty version of the Macross Saga and cut out all the interactions between the characters, it had no soul. If they do the movies and don’t focus on the character development too, well it will be hard to love.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=She97fWZleY
PLEASE don’t do Robotech, JUST DO MACROSS
Please rewrite all the Minmae songs and have Lana Del Rey sing them instead.
Forget Robotech… give me Battletech much cooler story and way more material to draw on with over a hundred books and computer games etc…
Might as well make a My Little Pony action feature. Robotech is completely different from Battletech in story, atmosphere, characters and almost everything else.
Yeahttp://www.sarna.net/wiki/Unseenh but thanks to Harmony Gold much of the earlier mech designs and consequently early characters (such as the Gray Death Legion trilogy) are in permanent development and rights hell. Have a look at this page, http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Unseen
You know, there is such a thing as TOO much information to draw from. BattleTech was a great minitures game before the hobby became to expensive for its target group. The books for the most part where great work especially considering that they were done by a multitude of writers. The Video games were pretty good for the most part (until Microsuck acquired the rights). But the story line spans a few hundred years or more. TO do it justice you are talking about ten movies.
Tom Hiddleston is Kyron. Kyron is Tom Hiddleston.
That is all.
I’ve always loved this series but to see a full movie of it makes me wonder how watered down their going to do it. Are they going to just do the Macross Saga or are they just gonna do a mash up?
Drew… the only way to do it justice would be LOTR style and have it be 3 feature length films. With todays CGI, and the fact that all three saga’s had for the most part separate casts, it could either make BIllions, or die after Macross.
Considering that Tatsunoko Productions only has the right to the footage of Superdimensional Fortress Macross, I cannot fathom how Harmony Gold believes that they have the rights to the characters and Mecha designs from Macross. They have done nothing but hinder Macross getting out of Japan, because they know their product is a pale shadow to the original.
Wasn’t it settled in court that Big West retained copyright to all character and mecha designs and that Harmony Gold could not create anything new using those designs? Seems I read that somewhere.
how are they going to get past the Copyright issue between Harmony Gold and Big West? has that been resolved?