The live-action Gundam movie from Legendary Pictures has found a home and will be heading to Netflix with a director now attached.
Jordan Vogt-Roberts (Kong: Skull Island) has signed on to direct the Gundam movie as it heads to becoming a Netflix original production. Brian K. Vaughn (The Runaways, Y: The Last Man) is still attached for the screenplay and will serve as an executive producer.
Legendary Pictures is set to co-produce the film with original Japanese animation studio Sunrise. Vaughn signed a three-year deal with Legendary in Dec. 2018 to work on adapting his own works for the studio as well as creating original works.
What story will a Gundam movie cover?
Gundam kicked off in 1979 with the first series, Mobile Suit Gundam. This was the beginning of what is known as the Universal Century (UC) timeline, telling a tale that Earth’s population has grown so large that humanity has begun living in space colonies. Eventually, these colonies desired independence from the Earth government and launch a war for independence.
There have been numerous other timelines over the years with many standalone seasons such as Gundam Wing. Our feeling, however, is that the films will go with some variation of the UC timeline simply because so much work is already done and the film franchise could go on for years.
This is the current UC timeline:
- Mobile Suit Gundam The Origin (UC0068 – UC0077)
- Mobile Suit Gundam MS IGLOO (January, UC0079)
- Mobile Suit Gundam (September, UC0079)
- Mobile Suit Gundam: The 08th MS Team (October, UC0079)
- Mobile Suit Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket (December, UC0079)
- Mobile Suit Gundam Thunderbolt (December, UC0079)
- Gundam the Ride: A Baoa Qu (December, UC0079)
- Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory (UC0083)
- Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam (UC0087)
- Gundam Neo Experience 0087: Green Divers (UC0087)
- Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ (UC0088)
- Mobile Suit Gundam: Char’s Counterattack (UC0093)
- Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn (UC0096)
- Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn RE:0096 (UC0096)
- Mobile Suit Gundam Twilight Axis (UC0096)
- Mobile Suit Gundam Narrative (UC0097)
- Mobile Suit Gundam Hathaway (UC0105)
- Mobile Suit Gundam F91 (UC0123)
- Mobile Suit Victory Gundam (UC0153)
- G-Saviour (UC0223)
As you can see it covers 155 years, so there is more than enough raw material to work with. There are even storylines that happen in the same month, so it’s a rich timeline that a writer could work with for years.
Legendary Pictures and Vaughn could also choose to go with a completely original story, but what a waste that would be when so much already exists.
All we ask is somehow the original theme song finds its way into the film.
We’ll be keeping an eye on this as it develops.
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