The Official Untitled Legendary Live Action Gundam Movie Thread Mk I

[BrentD15]

Seeing how "well" the reception of Cowboy Bebop's live-action adaptation has been, I'm now terrified for this movie.

[Chris]

Seeing how "well" the reception of Cowboy Bebop's live-action adaptation has been, I'm now terrified for this movie.

You're conflating two things that have nothing to do with each other. Cowboy Bebop was a Netflix production, and Gundam is by Legendary and Sunrise. Netflix has nothing to do with Gundam other than being the streaming outlet.

[Mafty]

Speaking of live action Sci Fi; Has anyone seen the latest episode of the book of Boba Fett? Because it does an amazing job on creating a realistic looking Space Colony/Space Port, and they didn't have a movie budget(granted their budget is still much bigger than most tv shows...). Legendary has done great work visually on robots in the Pacific Rim and Godzilla series, So hopefully the movie has enough budget to do special effects like this.

Also what does everyone think of Brian K Vaughn's writing? he's very well known for comics and television and was selected to write the script.

[Chris]

Also what does everyone think of Brian K Vaughn's writing? he's very well known for comics and television and was selected to write the script.

I've really enjoyed all the comics I've read from him, including Y: The Last Man, Saga, and The Private Eye, so I have no doubt that he'd put together a good script for Gundam.

[Ryujin]

Some days late with the news, but filming is scheduled to start this January. Given the stuff that's happened recently, it's understandable.

[Deacon Blues]

Some days late with the news, but filming is scheduled to start this January. Given the stuff that's happened recently, it's understandable.

If you're referring to that janky website claiming that it's starting in January in Ireland, there is no veracity to their claims.

Fake news for now, folks.

[SonicSP]

https://deadline.com/2024/10/gundam-mov ... 236163584/

So it seems that the movie has changed directors and Netflix is no longer involved.

[pirx]

Well... there's first Pacific Rim movie, which shows that did with care, big mecha movie can do good.

[Seto Kaiba]

Well... there's first Pacific Rim movie, which shows that did with care, big mecha movie can do good.

That's not a mecha movie, that's a kaiju movie. That's a very different genre with a whole different set of expectations built into it.

Even the success of Paramount's Transformers films is nonindicative, as they're also basically kaiju movies except for Transformers One by dint of the perspective characters being Transformers in that one instead of the least interesting humans alive.

The closest we have to a proper test case for something like a live action Gundam movie is probably Robot Jox, the infamously bad 1990 action movie about giant robot gladiators in the post-apocalypse. The only thing encouraging about that is that that disaster happened almost 35 years ago.

Of course, live action adaptations of anime tend to perform very poorly outside of Japan. Being critically panned and cancelled after a single film or season is the norm. There are a few exceptions like Netflix's One Piece or Fox's Alita: Battle Angel, though One Piece owes its success largely to its massive pre-existing global fanbase and Alita just barely turned a profit after marketing costs. My expectation is that Legendary is going to have a lot of trouble getting this one approved to enter production, because they're going to be stuck between the general audiences in the west who expect giant robots to be the stuff of mindless action movies full of Things Exploding and Gundam's signature character-focused anti-war narrative.

[pirx]

Well i was more referring to mechs themselves and battle part from Pacific Rim, i think that demonstrated that big mecha can work. Transformers i don't count. As for Robot Jox - that movie holds special place in my heart
We already have one live action Gundam movie, but as i recall there is an unwritten rule of Gundam fandom not to speak about it at all. It does not exist.

[Seto Kaiba]

Well i was more referring to mechs themselves and battle part from Pacific Rim, i think that demonstrated that big mecha can work.

When all is said and done, all it "proves" is that you can get away with having giant robots in a kaiju disaster movie... which was never really in doubt because Mechagodzilla's been a thing since 1974. It's a totally different concept and genre from Gundam.

Transformers i don't count. As for Robot Jox - that movie holds special place in my heart

I wouldn't count Transformers either, for the reasons given above.

Considering the quality of [iRobot Jox[/i], I can only assume the special place it holds in your heart is a piece of videocasette shrapnel stuck there after some kind of video store kiosk explosion?

We already have one live action Gundam movie, but as i recall there is an unwritten rule of Gundam fandom not to speak about it at all. It does not exist.

We do... but the title in question is a "Made for TV" movie produced to the much lower standards of quality that status entails. That Gundam's owners all but refused to acknowledge the 1999 film's existence until 2013 says all that needs to be said about its quality and what it meant for the chances of a project like Legendary's.

It's an awful risk they're taking, and I'm not entirely surprised Netflix is no longer involved.

After all, Netflix has gotten burned on anime adaptations in the past (e.g. Cowboy Bebop) despite the success of One Piece, other studios have taken big losses on similarly high-profile anime titles like Ghost in the Shell, and of course Netflix is still smarting from their last flirtation with bankrolling a big-budget sci-fi franchise (Star Trek) in exchange for the worldwide streaming rights.

[Deacon Blues]

We do... but the title in question is a "Made for TV" movie produced to the much lower standards of quality that status entails. That Gundam's owners all but refused to acknowledge the 1999 film's existence until 2013 says all that needs to be said about its quality and what it meant for the chances of a project like Legendary's.

Something tells me you've never bothered to read one iota of background for the film. Yes it's "made for TV," but the budget was still far greater than anything at the time for what the project set out to do. And contrary to what you claim, they haven't all but refused to acknowledge it over the years. There were a slew of specials that ran in hobby magazines over the years along with special column features in other magazines.

After all, Netflix has gotten burned on anime adaptations in the past (e.g. Cowboy Bebop) despite the success of One Piece, other studios have taken big losses on similarly high-profile anime titles like Ghost in the Shell, and of course Netflix is still smarting from their last flirtation with bankrolling a big-budget sci-fi franchise (Star Trek) in exchange for the worldwide streaming rights.

Netflix is not hurting that badly from it. Between being paid back by ViacomCBS for Discovery production among other things, their purses are hardly crying out.

[Seto Kaiba]

Something tells me you've never bothered to read one iota of background for the film. Yes it's "made for TV," but the budget was still far greater than anything at the time for what the project set out to do. And contrary to what you claim, they haven't all but refused to acknowledge it over the years. There were a slew of specials that ran in hobby magazines over the years along with special column features in other magazines.

I've read plenty, actually... its budget was actually pretty much dead-on comparable to the average spend for a SyFy made-for-TV movie (approximately 800M JPY, or about $6.4M USD). On the large side for a Japanese tokusatsu production, but by the standards of a Canadian production solidly in the expected average range.

Netflix is not hurting that badly from it. Between being paid back by ViacomCBS for Discovery production among other things, their purses are hardly crying out.

This is, I'm afraid, entirely untrue.

Netflix was not reimbursed for Discovery's production costs. The contract between CBS (later ViacomCBS/Paramount) and Netflix stipulated that Netflix would receive the "rest of world" streaming rights to Discovery in exchange for Netflix footing the bill for the show's production. The series underperformed so badly in the US and abroad that Netflix tried to have it cancelled after seasons one and two, and then sold the right back to CBS at a loss to be rid of their financial obligations to it after season three. They were responsible for the show's entire production budget, and were rightly pretty upset that the series regularly ran well over budget even before reshoots.

[Deacon Blues]

I've read plenty, actually... its budget was actually pretty much dead-on comparable to the average spend for a SyFy made-for-TV movie (approximately 800M JPY, or about $6.4M USD). On the large side for a Japanese tokusatsu production, but by the standards of a Canadian production solidly in the expected average range.

If you actually did, then you'd know it's NOT a Canadian production And it was 1 billion yen total for the project.

Netflix is not hurting that badly from it. Between being paid back by ViacomCBS for Discovery production among other things, their purses are hardly crying out.

This is, I'm afraid, entirely untrue.

Netflix was not reimbursed for Discovery's production costs. The contract between CBS (later ViacomCBS/Paramount) and Netflix stipulated that Netflix would receive the "rest of world" streaming rights to Discovery in exchange for Netflix footing the bill for the show's production. The series underperformed so badly in the US and abroad that Netflix tried to have it cancelled after seasons one and two, and then sold the right back to CBS at a loss to be rid of their financial obligations to it after season three. They were responsible for the show's entire production budget, and were rightly pretty upset that the series regularly ran well over budget even before reshoots.

CBS bought back the streaming rights back in 2021. That hardly hurt their purse strings.

[pirx]

Considering the quality of [iRobot Jox[/i], I can only assume the special place it holds in your heart is a piece of videocasette shrapnel stuck there after some kind of video store kiosk explosion?

First time i saw Robot Jox was in cinema and i was 16-17 then and for that age and time it was cool movie. No need to be an asshole about it.

[Seto Kaiba]

If you actually did, then you'd know it's NOT a Canadian production And it was 1 billion yen total for the project.

It was shot on location in Canada using Canadian actors. And 1 billion yen total doesn't take it outside the realm of made-for-TV movie budgets... even if we count the trailer version in the final cost.

CBS bought back the streaming rights back in 2021. That hardly hurt their purse strings.

Yes, I pointed that out to you previously. I guess you could say it didn't hurt... but all it really DID do was stem the bleeding.

At the time Netflix sold the exclusive rest-of-world streaming rights back to ViacomCBS/Paramount in 2021, they were out of pocket over $336M (US) on production of the series with almost nothing to show for it in terms of streaming performance or merchandising revenue. Mind you, that's actually a low-end estimate since it's based on CBS's reported $8M/episode budget which CBS also admits it routinely exceeded by a large margin. What the sale of the streaming rights got them was reported to be less than $1M. Not even 3/10ths of 1% of what they'd spent on the series. They took a big loss on that sale in order to get out of the project and avoid having to put up a further $104M+ as a budget for the show's fourth season.

Given the trouble they had with the studio and the massive losses it incurred, it's not entirely surprising Netflix might have second thoughts about funding a project in a major sci-fi franchise in exchange for the streaming rights.

[Deacon Blues]

It was shot on location in Canada using Canadian actors.

By that logic, do you know how many movies and TV shows would be "Canadian" by default? C'mon, stop being daft. You know how location scouting works, right? That's what they did for this film. In fact, as luck would have it, the fact that they just happened to be scouting in Canada proved fruitful. A space-themed movie had been canceled just before production, allowing them to repurpose its sets. As a bonus, this provided larger-scale sets than the budget had initially allowed for. But on that note, X-Files was primarily filmed in Vancouver for a lot of episodes, and used Canadian extras, but that doesn't make it a Canadian production. The Handmaid's Tale and The Boys are too. Are these "Canadian productions" then? Absolutely not. Even Kawahara, Inoue's wife, felt the need to address this fact all these years later in a celebratory post about the film earlier this year:

There’s also some misinformation floating around stating the production was done in Canada, but Canada only handled the “live-action portion filming,” and the production was ultimately done in America.

So again, it's NOT a Canadian production.

[Mafty]

Deacon Blues wrote A space-themed movie had been canceled just before production, allowing them to repurpose its sets. As a bonus, this provided larger-scale sets than the budget had initially allowed for. /quote]

That is a big budget saver, is there any info on what the cancelled movie was about? I know G-Saviour purchased costume's that hadn't turned out as well at a discount from the company that made the Starship Troopers armor.