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Bandai Namco Holdings USA Establishes Bandai Namco Filmworks America Subsidiary

Bandai Namco Holdings USA Inc. announced on Tuesday that it will establish a wholly-owned subsidiary named Bandai Namco Filmworks America, LLC on April 1, under the control of Bandai Namco Filmworks. The new subsidiary's goal is to expand foreign licensing business and brand management, ahead of Sunrise (Bandai Namco Filmworks) and Legendary Pictures' planned live-action Gundam film.

Jim Mickle (Sweet Tooth showrunner) is writing and directing the film, and is also producing it with partner Linda Moran through their Nightshade company. Bandai Namco Filmworks and Legendary Pictures signed a joint investment agreement for the film in January.

Jordan Vogt-Roberts (Kong: Skull Island) was previously announced as the director and an executive producer for the film, and comic book author Brian K. Vaughan (Y: The Last Man, Ex Machina, Runaways) was originally slated to write the script and serve as an executive producer. Makoto Asanuma was previously credited as an executive producer. Mary Parent (vice chair of Worldwide Production for Legendary), Legendary's Cale Boyter (Pokémon Detective Pikachu and Dune producer), and Sunrise's Naohiroshi Ogata were listed to produce. Netflix was previously announced to stream the film worldwide and had shared concept art (pictured right) in November 2021.

Boyter appeared with Bandai Namco Holdings president and representative director Mitsuaki Taguchi at Anime Expo in July 2018 to announce the adaptation. Robert Napton, former Bandai Entertainment Director of Marketing and Legendary Comics' current Senior Vice President of Publishing, moderated the panel segment about the live-action film project.

Napton and Sunrise Executive Expert for film production Ken Iyadomi revealed at a talk at a Project Anime industry presentation in March 2019, that the Gundam Unicorn's cameo in Pacific Rim: Uprising helped create the relationships between Sunrise and Legendary Pictures, and set the scene for talks about a Gundam film project. Iyadomi said that although contacting the right people for the deal was difficult, the CEO of Sunrise was very easy to convince. Another factor that made the negotiations easier was that Legendary had less people, so decisions could be made quicker.

The "Gundam Franchise's New Work Unveiling" event in April 2018 had listed a tentatively titled Mobile Suit Gundam UC2 (Kidō Senshi Gundam UC2) project that would have an "overseas drama" format. The listing said the project takes place in Universal Calendar 0104 and would launch in 2022. After showing the listing at the April 2018 event, the Sunrise Studio's emcee and one of the event's guests, Gundam Unicorn novelist Harutoshi Fukui, quickly told the audience to "pretend you didn't see that" visual.

Source: Gundam.info, Mantan Web

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Disclosure: Bandai Namco Filmworks Inc. (Sunrise) is a non-controlling, minority shareholder in Anime News Network Inc.