'Gundam' Live-Action Team Reveals How The Adaptation Got Ordered

It has taken some time, but it seems a renaissance is coming for live-action anime within Hollywood. Yes, flops like Dragonball Evolution and Ghost in the Shell made fans skeptical if studios could do the job right, but Legendary hopes to prove naysayers wrong. After proving itself with Pacific Rim, Legendary has teamed up with Sunrise on a live-action Gundam film, and fans just learned how that project came to life.

Recently, the executive expert of film production at Sunrise met with Robert Napto, the senior vice president of Legendary Comics, at Project Anime. It was there Ken Iyadomi opened up about how Gundam was brought to Hollywood, and the story goes way back (via ANN).

According to Iyadomi, his relationship with Napton began when the latter was a Bandai Entertainment. The pair helped usher in anime to its early U.S. market during the 1990s. Now at Legendary, Napton helped familiarize Iyadomi with the the company, and their professional relationship grew from there.

As it turns out, the big key to getting Gundam a live-action deal in the west was the Gundam Unicorn cameo in Pacific Rim: Uprising. It set up a platform to talk out a full live-action adaptation, and Iyadomi said he credits Legendary Pictures' willingness to listen as part of why the adaptation deal went through.

So far, details about the project have been kept quiet, but the panel saw Iyadomi and Napton talk about the film's writer. Brian K. Vaughan, a popular comic book author, will pen the adaptation. Napton said the writer is a tried-and-true fan of Gundam, and his knowledge of the series impressed those at Sunrise. So, fans are keeping their fingers crossed this live-action adaptation will help bring the mecha franchise into a new era once it gets off the ground.

So, are you excited about this live-action venture? Let me know in the comments or hit me up on Twitter @MeganPetersCB to talk all things comics and anime!

Mobile Suit Gundam is one of the most popular franchises in the world, and that popularity is only expected to grow as Sunrise continues to release new projects for the franchise. This includes new anime based in the original Universal Century storyline, which will next see a film trilogy based on the Hathaway's Flash novels, a returning anime for its SD Gundam spin-offs, and even a brand new live-action movie coming to the West co-produced by Legendary, a studio who is currently in the midst of bringing a new take on Toho's Godzilla franchise to the screen.

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