Netflix’s Cowboy Bebop Series Working Title Revealed

Cowboy Bebop is one of the few anime projects that anime fans will unanimously consider a classic, and although the series branched out with a feature film it had been relatively free of other adaptations or spin-offs. But Netflix made major news earlier this year when they announced that they would be producing a new live-action television series for Cowboy Bebop, and production on the series had begun just a few weeks ago. According to a report from the latest issue of Production Weekly, the live-action series was being filmed under the working title of “Jazz Band.”

For those familiar with the original Cowboy Bebop anime series, this working title should make a lot of sense considering how music and its various genres and styles were meshed into the fabric of the series as a whole. Episodes were named after musical pieces, it was full of distinct sounds, and “Jazz Band” certainly paints a good picture for the live-action series.

Unfortunately, there’s going to be a delay as to when we’ll be able to see the new series. After John Cho, who had been cast as the live-action version of Spike Spiegel, suffered an injury on the set, production has been halted until Cho is fully recovered. There’s currently no update as to when the series will be resuming production as of this writing, but Cho issued a comment shortly after the news broke that revealed he’s taking it all in stride.

The Cowboy Bebop live-action series will be a co-production between Netflix and Tomorrow Studios. The series has been confirmed to run for 10 episodes, and Alex Garcia Lopez (Marvel’s Daredevil) will direct the first two episodes. Christopher Yost (Thor: Ragnarok) has been confirmed to write the first episode. The currently confirmed cast for the new series includes the John Cho as Spike Spiegel, Mustafa Shakir as Jet Black, Daniella Pineda as Faye Valentine, and Alex Hassell as Vicious.

Director of the original series, Shinichiro Watanabe, will be serving as a consultant on the new project. Andre Nemec, Josh Appelbaum, Jeff Pinkner, and Scott Rosenberg of Midnight Radio will serve as executive producers, and Yasuo Miyakawa, Masayuki Ozaki, and Shin Sasaki from the original anime’s studio Sunrise will also executive produce as well.

Netflix officially describes the new series as such, “Based on the worldwide phenomenon from Sunrise Inc., Cowboy Bebop is the jazz-inspired, genre-bending story of a rag-tag crew of bounty hunters on the run from their pasts, as they hunt down the solar system’s most dangerous criminals. They’ll even save the world…for the right price.”