Jordan Vogt-Roberts To Direct ‘Gundam’ Live-Action Movie From Legendary & Netflix

Netflix said Monday that it has set Kong: Skull Island helmer Jordan Vogt-Roberts to direct a live-action Gundam, based on the iconic Japanese mecha franchise. The feature film hails from Legendary, which is reteaming with Vogt-Roberts from Skull Island and comes off the outsized box office success of its tentpole Godzilla vs. Kong.

Y: The Last Man scribe Brian K. Vaughan is handling screenplay duties for the project, which he is also executive producing with Legendary’s Cale Boyter and Japanese studio Sunrise which originated the franchise. Vogt-Roberts is also producing.

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The plot for the movie is under wraps, but the original franchise 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. The battles in the story are fought by the characters piloting robots known as mobile suits.

The original franchise launched with 1979’s anime series Mobile Suit Gundam, considered the pioneer of the giant-robot mecha genre, created by Sunrise and Yoshiyuki Tomino. It spurred numerous TV series novels, manga, video games and Bandai Namco’s popular plastic model kits.

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