Live-Action ‘Cowboy Bebop’ Film In Development
Saturday, July 26th, 2008
Film Producer Erwin Stoff (The Matrix, A Scanner Darkly) is developing a live-action adaptation of Shinichiro Watanabe’s Cowboy Bebop for Fox. According to Stoff the project is "in the really early stages" but promises "a real degree of faithfulness." He added, “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.”
The multi-genre original anime follows the adventures of a motley crew of bounty hunters (referred to as "Cowboys") traveling on their spaceship, the Bebop, in the year 2071.
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Huh, I don’t know what to think of this. I love Cowboy Bebop, but I’m not sure a live-action movie will turn out well. I’ll keep my eye out for this though.
Okay, this’ll sound uniformed (most like) because I’ve only seen a hand full of episodes (of Cowboy Bepop I mean) but didn’t we HAVE a live action? (to an extent?) And wasn’t it called Firefly? Just saying…
(I caveat with I am not an anime person. The only reason I watched Cowboy Bepop to begin with is because a friend told me it was an anime Firefly)
I’m still waiting for the Evangelion movie. As flawed as the anime series is, it has a lot of potential. But a live action movie of that could totally work, IMO. We’ll see about this. I was going to say though, from what I’ve seen of Cowboy Bebop, it reminded me a lot of Firefly too.
Cowboy Bebop was an awesome series. It was sorta like Firefly, but not as deep. The pool of characters was much smaller and they did a much better job showing how poor and hungry they were. They were also bounty hunters and got their leads from a TV show where they referred to their viewers as “cowboys.”
I loved this series, but I’m not sure a live action movie would work. Edward was a hilarious, androginous, character that still has people arguing over his/her sex (they say in the series, but I won’t spoil it). Also, the end of the series was depressing and most movies don’t end on such a low note.
I am still excited to see how it turns out!
The biggest difference is that there really aren’t very many western undertones in Cowboy Bebop (other than bounty hunters being called “cowboys”). I actually get more of a 20s/30s vibe because of the Jazz music. But the similarities are definitely there, especially with a few of the character archetypes used.
But to say that there is no reason for a live action version because we already have Firefly is actually pretty disrespectful to everyone involved with making Cowboy Bebop (and the fans of it as well) because CB was made WAAAAY before Firefly. I mean I know everyone loves Joss, but come on. Plus the fact that none of you have actually watched the show doesn’t really give any of you the right to say that either. Because other than surface similarities (spaceships, pulling “jobs”, eccentric crew member) the two shows aren’t even remotely similar. Just saying…
I actually think the anime Outlaw Star is closer to Firefly than Cowboy Bebop is. I agree that just because Firefly was sort of similar to Bebop doesn’t mean this shouldn’t be made. I’m just unsure of how well a lot of the things from the series will translate to live-action.
I have seen the entire show, and the Cowboy Bebop movie. I am definitely a fan of the show, and I love the jazzy influences, both in soundtrack and storytelling. I think a live-action version *might* be good, but it would be very hard to do. They would definitely have to get the right person to play Spike, and they would have to find some way to keep the overall tone of the show. A lot of things from the show work great in animation, but they would be hard to make work in live action.
The tone isn’t going to be the same. Period. When going from something as quirky as anime to a live action setting, the tone is going to change without a doubt. If it doesn’t, we get a mess of a film like Speed Racer. It just doesn’t translate well. I think the best we can hope for is a great adaptation of the plot and characters, which would be good enough for me.
In casting, I always pictured Jared Leto as Spike and maybe Maggie Gyllenhaal as Faye. Haven’t thought much beyond that. I think we can all agree that Ed would be the hardest to cast.
@Doctor: I never actually implied that it shouldn’t be made because it was like Firefly like some people may have. However, I will say that just because it exists prior to something doesn’t really give it a right to “survive” in a different form if it’s similar to something else. It may be a great anime series, but if it would get unfair comparisons and saturate what little market there is for that sort of thing, I don’t think that would be unfair to the creators or the fans at all to say. Now obviously that’s not the case. Because we are probably in an extreme minority that actually even makes the Firefly reference. And there is obviously plenty of room for something like that to exist. I’m just saying that I don’t feel saying, “We already have something like that” is an unfair statement. Yes, it came first. But did it come first in the form it’s transitioning to? Then it still has to be aware of the market.
Also, you say that keeping the same tone got us Speed Racer. I’m going the opposite way. Not being faithful enough to the original series got us Speed Racer. The Wachowski Brothers mutilating the series got us Speed Racer. Like the movie or hate it, it is not the original series. Obviously sticking close to that weird tone that the original had would have been pretty hazardous in itself, but it’s also a lesson in not straying to far from the original source, IMO.
Wha-wha-wha!? Speed Racer wasn’t faithful to the show!? I thought it was a little too faithful.
Agreed TNN, hence, the problem. Or at least that’s what I thought.
I don’t care what you aoll say, I loved Speed Racer. :p :D
Cowboy Bebop in live action….. I don’t like it. it seemed hard enough to make an anime movie, let alone a live action one…… Something tells me this one will suck.