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Producer: Live-Action Cowboy Bebop Will Not Be Origin Story
posted on by Egan Loo
3 Arts Entertainment producer Erwin Stoff (The Matrix, I am Legend, Kings) has told the iFMagazine.com website that the live-action Cowboy Bebop film in development will not be an origin story. “We start with [the main character, bounty hunter Spike Spiegel], when he is in his present life already.” He also emphasized that the producers began the project by meeting with Shinichiro Watanabe, the director of Sunrise's original Cowboy Bebop science-fiction anime series. "He will be the first guy to read a script when it's done. We'll discuss directors with him." While screenwriter Peter Craig has yet to finish the script, Stoff hopes to make the film next year and expects it will have a "totally multi-ethnic cast."
The iFMagazine.com site first reported on the film proposal last July after the parties "just signed it the other day." Last month, actor Keanu Reeves expressed his interest in starring, and initially indicated that the story will be partly based on the "Red Eye" storyline from the first episode of the anime series. Sunrise officially announced the project last week with Twentieth Century Fox, 3 Arts Entertainment, Reeves, and Stoff. Sunrise President Kenji Uchida, Watanabe, and the original series script supervisor Keiko Nobumoto will act as associate producers, while Sunrise and Masahiko Minami (former Sunrise producer and BONES studio co-founder) will consult on the production.
Image © Sunrise Inc.
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