New 'Gundam' Live-Action Movie Announced by Sunrise and Legendary

07/05/2018 05:45 pm EDT

Ever since the a Mobile Suit Gundam unit appeared in Ready Player One, fans have been ready for a live-action movie seeing the success of many films like Legendary's Pacific Rim franchise.

Speaking of Legendary, Sunrise president Yasuo Miyawaka appeared at Sunrise's panel at Anime Expo and announced that a new Mobile Suit Gundam live-action movie was in the works.

Here's the official press release from Sunrise about the new live-action movie:

"Legendary and Sunrise announced today at Anime Expo 2018, plans to co-produce the first-ever live-action feature film version of GUNDAM, based on Sunrise's massively popular Mecha anime and science fiction media franchise. The billion dollar property 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 master toy licensee Bandai Namco's earnings almost forty years after its inception.

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 story for the live-action version of Gundam is being kept under wraps. The project will be overseen by Cale Boyter on behalf of Legendary with the Sunrise creative team.

Legendary currently has three films in various phases of production including SKYSCRAPER, coming to theaters on July 13; and both GODZILLA: KING OF THE MONSTERS, and the live-action, DETECTIVE PIKACHU films both in post-production, with GODZILLA VS. KONG in prep."

Financial magazine Weekly Toyo Keizai commissioned the 70 year old character designer for Mobile Suit Gundam, Yoshikazu Yasuhiko, to draw their cover for their 2018 financial forecast issue.The cover depicts President of the United States Donald Trump partying for the new year with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping, and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. The most damning, however, is the depiction of North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un, who sits on top of a nuclear missile in-between all of them.

The newest project, Mobile Suit Gundam Narrative, is part of the "UC NexT 0100 Project," which will tackle the events of the Universal Century storyline following the likes of the original Mobile Suit Gundam series and Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn. And is currently scheduled for a release in Japanese theaters later this year.

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