According to information from international news outlets Variety and ANN, the famous anime Cowboy Bebop will get a live-action series produced in the US and co-produced by Sunrise. The partnership was finalized between Tomorrow Studio and producer Marty Adelstein along with ITV Studios.
The studio Sunrise , which worked on the anime, will handle the production.
Others who will also work on the project include Adelstein, Becky Clements (Good Behavior), Midnight Radio, and Matthew Weinberg. Midnight Radio is composed of Josh Appelbaum, Andre Nemec, Jeff Pinkner, and Scott Rosenberg.
Shinichiro Watanabe spoke about the live-action proposal in 2014, saying: “I’m afraid I don’t know what they’re thinking in Hollywood. Apparently, the project hasn’t been canceled yet, but I don’t know how it will progress from here. I’ve heard there are a lot of problems in Hollywood.” He also concluded that he has no interest in making a sequel to Cowboy Bebop unless “I think I can do better than last time. If I feel that way, I can do more, but I don’t know when that would happen.”
No date has yet been set for the start of filming or for the cast of actors.
The series is set in 2071 and tells the story of a group of bounty hunters who travel aboard the spaceship Bebop. It unfolds in 26 episodes filled with action, adventure, crime, and tragedy. The series explores various philosophical concepts, including existentialism, loneliness, and boredom. With numerous settings and deep characters, combined with the excellent flow of the plot (deeply based on American culture, particularly the jazz movements of the 1940s; and with the characters' names always typically American, never Japanese as is common) and numerous action sequences (from space battles to hand-to-hand combat), the anime became popular in Japan and subsequently in other countries, attracting a considerable number of viewers.