David Farnor | On 13, Apr 2021

Jordan Vogt-Roberts is heading to Netflix to direct a film based on Gundam.

The massively popular Mecha anime and science fiction media franchise was created in 1979 and has spawned a multi-platform universe encompassing televised anime, manga, animated films, video games, plastic models, toys, and novels among other media.

Now, it’s getting its first live-action feature outing, with Kong: Skull Island director Vogt-Roberts at the helm. Brian K Vaughan is penning the script, as well as executive producing the project with Cale Boyter overseeing on behalf of Legendary with the Sunrise creative team.

The story for the live-action film version of Gundam is being kept under wraps but the original Gundam series is set in the Universal Century, an era in which humanity’s growing population has led people to emigrate to space colonies. Eventually, the people living in the colonies seek their autonomy, and launch a war of independence against the people living on Earth. Through the tragedies and discord arising from this human conflict, not only the maturation of the main character, but also the intentions of enemies and the surrounding people are sensitively depicted. The battles in the story, in which the characters pilot robots known as mobile suits, are wildly popular. The Gundam universe is replete with numerous story lines of love and conflict along with the popular Gundam battles, in which the characters operate robot suits called Mobile Suits.

Netflix will debut the movie worldwide, except for China where Legendary will distribute the film.

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