Back at San Diego Comic-Con 2019, Anthony and Joe Russo announced a bunch of projects their production company AGBO would be developing and that group included a feature film adaptation of the beloved Japanese anime series Battle of The Planets aka Gatchaman.
There is now a status update as Deadline reports that The Russo Brothers have hired F9: The Fast Saga screenwriter Daniel Casey (Kin, 10 Cloverfield Lane) to work on the script for Battle of The Planets.
The series followed five young orphans who are trained from a young age to form an elite, intergalactic team known as G-Force, swearing to protect Earth and its allies from otherworldly invading forces.
Russo Brothers are behind some of the biggest Marvel Studios successes with Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Captain America: Civil War, Avengers: Infinity War, and Avenger: Endgame. Their experience with large scale team based blockbusters should put fans’ of the anime at ease about a feature film adaptation. They’re currently shooting Netflix’s big budget spy action flick The Gray Man starring Chris Evans and Ryan Gosling, the streamer claiming it is their most expensive film to date with a budget of over $200 million.
There is an expectation the sibling duo will direct Battle of The Planets (given their personal connection to the anime) and could end up getting a hefty budget to cover the elaborate futuristic sets and the visual effects needed to bring the anime adaptation to life.
The project comes as we’ve seen a limited amount of anime/manga adaptations from Hollywood such as Alita: Battle Angel, Ghost In The Shell, Speed Racer, Guyver, Dragonball, Death Note, and Netflix’s upcoming Cowboy Bebop series. Other projects in development include Robotech, Attack On Titan, Gundam, and Warner Bros. has spend almost two decades trying to bring Akira to the big screen.
With most prime comic book projects have been picked over by Hollywood studios over the last thirty years there will be a point that movies based on anime and manga source material will end up having more regularly, because the genre concepts may translate well to the big screen.
SOURCE: DEADLINE