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Film Rights for 'Multiple' Shogun Warriors Licensed

The Ain't It Cool News website reports that developer Jules Urbach licensed the feature film rights to "multiple characters" from the Shogun Warriors super robot brand, and has also posted the 95-second Gaiking computer-graphics/live-action pilot that Toei Animation premiered at Tokyo International Anime Fair this past week. The pilot is for a proposed remake of the Gaiking classic anime series from Toei. The American toy company Mattel imported toys from several Toei series, including Gaiking, under the Shogun Warriors brand in the 1970s.

Urbach, the developer of the award-winning Light Stage technology used in Avatar and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, produced the pilot with director Matthew Gratzner in North America. Gratzner co-founded the visual effects company New Deal Studios and worked on the visual effects on Shutter Island, Hancock, The Dark Knight, Iron Man, The Aviator, Resident Evil: Extinction, Superman Returns, National Treasure, and Alien: Resurrection. He won an Emmy nomination for the Tom Hanks and HBO television mini-series From The Earth To The Moon.

According to Ain't It Cool News, Urbach noted that the website's founder Harry Knowles had posted a wish for a Shogun Warriors film 10 years ago. Urbach showed Knowles' post to directors James Cameron (Avatar, Titanic, Terminator) and David Fincher (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Fight Club, Se7en), and they decided to make a seven-minute Gaiking/Shogun Warriors short for Fincher's proposed update of the Heavy Metal animated anthology film. Urbach then obtained the rights to make a feature-length Gaiking/Shogun Warriors film "with rights to multiple characters from that universe."

According to Knowles, the choice of which characters will be included in the proposed feature film will not be revealed until this year's Comic-Con International in San Diego in July.

Images © Toei Animation