Fox Developing Cowboy Bebop Live-Action Feature Film!

by Alex Billington

All your Faye Valentine fantasies are finally going to come true… if you have any at least! Following Akira and Ghost in the Shell announcements, apparently Cowboy Bebop is in for a live-action adaptation as well. IF Magazine talked with veteran producer Erwin Stoff (via AICN) and discovered that he's working on making a live-action Cowboy Bebop movie with Fox. Apparently it's very fresh news: "I'm really excited to be working on it, and it's in the really early stages. We just signed it the other day." If you're not so familiar with Bebop, it's an incredibly popular Japanese anime TV series that first aired back in 1998 and has become a hit here in the US as well as Japan. I'm not exactly a big fan myself, but considering Hollywood is caught up in the anime trend, I'm definitely excited to see this one come to life as well.

Stoff goes on to explain his enthusiasm for the project and their attempts to remain faithful. "I have such an enormous admiration for its creators, that our first and foremost concern is going to be a real degree of faithfulness to the tone of the movie, to the mix of genres, and so on and so forth. When I met with them in Japan, one of the first things that I brought up was the experience that we had on A Scanner Darkly, and how hard we worked to remain faithful to Philip K. Dick, and that was our big concern here." Don't get confused, this does not mean that they're going for a similar animated look like A Scanner Darkly, as he explicitly said that it's going to be live-action. And if you're wondering who Faye Valentine is, she's one of the main character's in the series and a fan favorite. The photo to the right comes from Bam Kapow's gallery of Faye Valentine costumes.

The show first aired in Japan in early 1998 and was brought over to America in 2001 on Adult Swim. The series follows the adventures of a group of bounty hunters traveling on their spaceship, the Bebop, in the year 2071. Sony released a full-length animated film titled Cowboy Bebop: Knockin' on Heavens Door in 2001 where it was greeted with immense praise from fans worldwide. It is easily one of the most popular mainstream anime series and is beloved by many people even if they're not hardcore anime fans. I think it's the perfect series to adapt, but like Dragonball, I worry that it may get screwed up in translation if it falls into the wrong hands. Unfortunately both Dragonball and this adaptation are at Fox, which isn't a good sign so far, but maybe they'll find a good director. However, I'm enjoying Hollywood's anime trend and am anxious to see what they're going to do with Cowboy Bebop. Thoughts?

Original here