The Mobile Suit Gundam franchise has found longevity thanks to creating countless new anime series that place the mech into different timelines and alternate realities. One area that Gundam hasn’t conquered is the live-action world, but the long-running anime series is looking to change that. Legendary Pictures and Bandai Namco Filmworks are teaming up to produce a North American live-action Gundam movie, with Sydney Sweeney and Noah Centineo set to star. While a major platform has apparently nabbed the live-action adaptation, said outlet might come as bad news for those hoping to see this new Gundam project on the silver screen.
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In a reveal from the outlet Deadline, Netflix will be the home for the upcoming live-action adaptation. It makes sense for the streaming service to add the upcoming Gundam movie to its library, as the streaming service has created live-action takes on the likes of One Piece, Avatar: The Last Airbender, and Yu Yu Hakusho. Unfortunately, it has yet to be revealed whether this means that the Gundam film will avoid cinemas entirely. In recent years, Netflix has brought some of its original properties to theaters, such as Guillermo Del Toro’s Frankenstein and Knives Out: Wake Up Dead Man, so fingers crossed that the same will be true for the highly anticipated mech movie.
The Live-Action Gundam Movie: What Will It Be?
To date, the story that this Gundam movie will focus on remains a mystery, with fans wondering if it will cover the original Universal Century storyline or dive into unexplored territory. Throughout the decades, since first arriving in the late 1970s, the Mobile Suit franchise has explored countless different arcs over the likes of Gundam Wing, G Gundam, and more. The versatility of the franchise is what has helped it become a household name, with plastic models of the mechs selling hundreds of millions.
For quite some time, live-action anime was a medium that many believed would never take off, as past examples such as Dragon Ball: Evolution, Ghost in the Shell, and Fist of the North Star were unable to live up to their source materials according to fans. Things have changed thanks to the Straw Hat Pirates recently, as One Piece creator Eiichiro Oda’s involvement with Netflix has made the live-action anime world break out of its former shell. At present, there are live-action adaptations of My Hero Academia, One-Punch Man, Naruto, and more in the works.
This upcoming live-action movie isn’t the only Gundam film that is set to release in the future. Later this year, Mobile Suit Gundam Hathaway: The Sorcery of Nymph Circe will arrive in theaters, acting as a sequel to the previous film, Hathaway’s Flash. While not live-action, the movie is a highly anticipated entry in the Gundam library, as it will further expand on the original universe that started it all.
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