Despite the critical and commercial lashing GHOST IN THE SHELL received, studios are still out there looking for the next hot anime property to give the live action treatment. There’s no shortage of shows and movies to choose from, and one of the most beloved series around has just been selected from the pile.
News is the commercially and critically successful COWBOY BEBOP series will be adapted as a live action television series over at Tomorrow studios, with THOR: THE DARK WORLD and SILVER & BLACK writer Christopher Yost writing the series. The studio responsible for the original series, Sunset Inc., will executive produce the new series.
For those who don’t know the anime, the original 1998 series takes place in the year 2071 and surrounds a team of bounty hunters (a.k.a cowboys) who travail the galaxy rounding up thugs and surviving the galaxy’s toughest threats. The 26-episode series received critical acclaim, and has been credited with helping bring anime into the Western mainstream, and is considered one of the best anime shows ever.
Of the recent live action adaptations of anime properties, SHELL with Scarlett Johansson came out to middling reviews and similar box office, while Adam Wingard is hard at work on a DEATH NOTE movie for Netflix. A live action AKIRA has also been on the docket for years, but has yet to find a director
I’ve said before I’m not the biggest anime fan in the world, but based on what I’ve learned about BEBOP it sounds like a pretty entertaining sci-fi adventure series. Remaking it as a show instead of a movie will probably yield better results, even though I’m sure fans would rather it just not be touched. But of course, that can never be the case anymore, so fans better hold onto their space pants and hope for the best.