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[Bullet Club]

‘Hawkeye’ Director Rhys Thomas To Helm Sony’s ‘Robotech’ Adaptation​

After helping steer the ship as the main director on Marvel’s Hawkeye series, Rhys Thomas has been set to direct Mark Canton and Gianni Nunnari’s Robotech for Sony Pictures. The film is currently in development with the script by Marcum & Holloway, with a rewrite by Gatewood & Tanaka. Harmony Gold is also involved.

Based on the popular 80s anime TV series, story of Robotech is set in a time when Earth has developed giant robots from the technology of an alien spacecraft that crashed on a South Pacific island and is now using that technology to fight off an impending alien invasion.

Thomas is flying high right now after directing and executive producing the Disney+ Marvel series, Hawkeye, with Jeremy Renner reprising his Avenger role. Thomas is also highly regarded in the comedy world for his work on Saturday Night Live and the Emmy-nominated and critically-acclaimed IFC series Documentary Now!, which he co-created with Fred Armisen, Bill Hader, and Seth Meyers, and directed. For Documentary Now!, Thomas received four Emmy nominations and he is currently in production on Season 4.

Gatewood & Tanaka’s feature Sharper sold in a bidding war to Apple and A24 with Julianne Moore attached to star. Ben Curon directed the film, now in post-production, co-starring Sebastian Stan. Gatewood & Tanaka are currently writing Untitled Asian American Heist Project for Amazon. Canton/Nunnari Productions producing credits include 300 and Immortals, and most currently Canton is an executive producer of the Power universe series.

Thomas is represented by WME, 3 Arts Entertainment and Ziffren Brittenham. Gatewood and Tanaka are repped by UTA, Management 360, Hansen, Jacobson, Teller, Hoberman, Newman, Warren, Richman, Rush, Kaller & Gellman, LLP

Source: Deadline

 

[Setzer]

They've been talking about doing a movie for 15 years now.....ain't gonna hold my breath.

 

[Bullet Club]

They've been talking about doing a movie for 15 years now.....ain't gonna hold my breath.

You're probably right. When I did a search to see if this had been posted already this popped up from 2017:

https://www.neogaf.com/threads/thr-exclusive-it-director-andy-muschietti-to-tackle-robotech-for-sony.1408344/

 

[Punished Miku]

I didnt know Tom Holland was into sci fi movies.

 

[Wheeljack539]

You're probably right. When I did a search to see if this had been posted already this popped up from 2017:

https://www.neogaf.com/threads/thr-exclusive-it-director-andy-muschietti-to-tackle-robotech-for-sony.1408344/

What we have is a case of license purchasing for it to sit in development hell for a few years, license expires, new company shows interest, licenses, lather, rinse repeat.

What I always find amusing is those who blame the parent company HG, as if they had any real power to tell these studios what to do.

 

[Setzer]

You're probably right. When I did a search to see if this had been posted already this popped up from 2017:

https://www.neogaf.com/threads/thr-exclusive-it-director-andy-muschietti-to-tackle-robotech-for-sony.1408344/

Yep, I remember that. I think Warner Bros. first had the rights to it back in 2007 and they were even talking about casting Tobey Maguire as Rick Hunter.

Hopefully Sony will finally get it made. I don't have super high hopes for it, especially when you're trying take a beloved anime series and turn it into a live action film.

 

[Fbh]

Script by the people behind Transformers The Last Knight, The Uncharted movie and the latest MiB, with a rewrite by the people behind shitty comedies like The Sitter and Superstore.

It's going to suck.

Shame, could have been a cool project.

 

[Trogdor1123]

Robotech would be awesome… but I seriously don’t see them doing it right. We will see minmay in a veritech before the end… or they lead into Mira right away which would probably be a great approach actually.

 

[jason10mm]

I'm curious what they would even take into a film. Stop it after they jump away from Earth or try to get it to the Mars battle? Somehow condense the entire Minmei subversion of Zentradi conditioning and eventual mutiny into a single film? How to even BEGIN to set up the Khyron/Breetai dynamic?

Heck, I wonder what the budget would have to be to even attempt to replicate the fast paced action of the show. Giant mecha tend to be pretty ponderous in live action or in inscrutable action nonsense like the Bay films (though that's probably just a choice he made).

Does Robotech have ANY mindshare anymore outside of a few old nerds? It's still streaming on amazon so I suppose they would know.

Personally I wouldn't mind a new animated show refreshing the original Macross tale. The follow on movies never seemed to really recapture the joy of those first few series and is the protoculture "saga" really the draw? For me it was the mecha, then some of the personalities like Rick and Roy, then more mecha, the overall drama, and finally the mecha. But there was a lot of silly stuff, mostly involving Minmei and Lisa, that would probably get amplified these days.

 

[Trogdor1123]

I'm curious what they would even take into a film. Stop it after they jump away from Earth or try to get it to the Mars battle? Somehow condense the entire Minmei subversion of Zentradi conditioning and eventual mutiny into a single film? How to even BEGIN to set up the Khyron/Breetai dynamic?

Heck, I wonder what the budget would have to be to even attempt to replicate the fast paced action of the show. Giant mecha tend to be pretty ponderous in live action or in inscrutable action nonsense like the Bay films (though that's probably just a choice he made).

Does Robotech have ANY mindshare anymore outside of a few old nerds? It's still streaming on amazon so I suppose they would know.

Personally I wouldn't mind a new animated show refreshing the original Macross tale. The follow on movies never seemed to really recapture the joy of those first few series and is the protoculture "saga" really the draw? For me it was the mecha, then some of the personalities like Rick and Roy, then more mecha, the overall drama, and finally the mecha. But there was a lot of silly stuff, mostly involving Minmei and Lisa, that would probably get amplified these days.

The protoculture part would need to be cut 100%. People wouldn’t understand it.

 

[NecrosaroIII]

Can't they do Macross instead

 

[Pagusas]

Hawkey had a few select moments of brillance, but overall was the worst of all the MCU shows, and I'd say as a full package was pretty damn bad. Hope Thomas learned some things from it that will help make better stuff in the future.

 

[Sub_Level]

Sony

 

[Sleepwalker]

Hawkeye wasn't very good so not really excited for this.

 

[TheGrat1]

LMAO Why waste your time with that garbage? Robotech is a complete bastardization of three different, completely unrelated anime mashed together to try and make a continuous story. If Harmony Gold were to go bankrupt and Robotech was consigned to the dustbin of history I would see it as the first sign of potential world peace.

Can't they do Macross instead

This, 1,000 times over. It is a Japanese property that was actually meant to fit together, it should be a slam dunk to get the rights.

 

[Deleted member 1159]

As a young teenager in the late 90s I drafted a script for my live action Robotech adaptation…I had this whole scene envisioned of Roy tearing across the desert with Crazy Train blasting…man that shit would’ve been cool.

In conclusion, someone should give me the Robotech franchise rights 25 years ago.

 

[sol_bad]

Rhys Thomas directed the crappier episodes of Hawkeye so this is not exciting at all.

 

[NecrosaroIII]

Also they need the soundtrack from the series. This franchise is useless without its soundtrack.

 

[AJUMP23]

Doesn’t this have the pop star girl that sings and falls in love with the pilot. I can’t keep all my anime straight

 

[TheGrat1]

Also they need the soundtrack from the series. This franchise is useless without its soundtrack.

Macross =/= Robotech

Doesn’t this have the pop star girl that sings and falls in love with the pilot. I can’t keep all my anime straight

I never watched that far into Robotech but since it would be pretty hard for them to completely cut out that element of Macross' story, then probably yes.

 

[kunonabi]

Doesn’t this have the pop star girl that sings and falls in love with the pilot. I can’t keep all my anime straight

It's more about the pilot being infatuated with her but a lot happens.

 

[AREYOUOKAY?]

It will fail unless they include this


or they fail to recreate the final battle.

Spoiler

Who am I kidding this won't win at anything even if it ever gets made in the first place.

 

[NotMyProblemAnymoreCunt]

It's more about the pilot being infatuated with her but a lot happens.

Min Mae Sucks

 

[kunonabi]

Min Mae Sucks

Indeed she does.

 

[March Climber]

Hawkey had a few select moments of brillance, but overall was the worst of all the MCU shows, and I'd say as a full package was pretty damn bad. Hope Thomas learned some things from it that will help make better stuff in the future.

But was that the writers' fault or the director's fault? With Hawkeye the director had a lot of pretty good shots, long takes, and camerawork that made it easy to follow the action.

 

[AJUMP23]

Min Mae Sucks

Oh man she is the mostest sweetest and inocentest character in the whole show.

 

[Sub_Level]

Since we are on the subject, anyone see Do You Remember Love?

The animation looks absolutely insane. It matches and maybe even surpasses Macross Plus.

 

[jason10mm]

Oh man she is the mostest sweetest and inocentest character in the whole show.

Well, modern writers would have her be a secret tactical genius and bestest veritech engineer ever if only those hormone driven lunkheads Rick and Roy would listen to her. She encodes her grand strategy into song and they think it is their own idea.

 

[Trogdor1123]

Since we are on the subject, anyone see Do You Remember Love?

The animation looks absolutely insane. It matches and maybe even surpasses Macross Plus.

Macros plus was awesome!

We need a new show in the series. Did the shadow chronicles ever pan out?

 

[Deleted member 1159]

Since we are on the subject, anyone see Do You Remember Love?

The animation looks absolutely insane. It matches and maybe even surpasses Macross Plus.

It’s seriously some of the best traditional animation that’s not Akira. The original Macross/Robotech show looks janky as fuck these days but Do You Remember the Love is gorgeous as hell. And it had a hilariously awful dub if you can find it

 

[AREYOUOKAY?]

Min Mae Sucks

Indeed she does.

 

[ClanOfNone]

I have a tremendous soft spot for the American run of Robotech. I would wake up at 6am to watch it, glass of Nestlé Quick in hand. I saw most of the first run, and man did I love it. I bought all the novels by McKinney and tore through them as well, I even had a Veritech fighter pilot character in a Rifts campaign.
It wasn't till many years later that I learned the American run was a crazy mishmash of three separate series. I still love it, massive warts and all.

 

[manfestival]

not even sure how I missed this but my goodness... I love robotech but I fear for them doing any justice these days to a property like that. Especially with all of the vanity projects they have going on out here these days.

 

[jason10mm]

I can't wait to see the veritech and battle pods get reduced to armor suits to save budget. The size discrepancy would probably be eliminated as well. Maybe even Zentraedi as purple skinned (weren't they clones as well?) aliens.

Heck, they are probably casting Elon Musk as Zor and all the Zentraedi are Joe Rogan look alikes leading a bropocalypse that can only be fought by the uniting power of extreme forced diversity represented by rainbow colored jumpsuit armor. The Mac II is just a really big hipped nonbinary person.

Hmmm, maybe I'm getting too cynical about all of this

 

[STARSBarry]

Also they need the soundtrack from the series. This franchise is useless without its soundtrack.

It will fail unless they include this


or they fail to recreate the final battle.

Spoiler

Who am I kidding this won't win at anything even if it ever gets made in the first place.

And then there's people like me which are all for...



Man i was always sad they never did anything with Sharon Apple after Plus, they play a few of her songs in Macross 7 but that's it .

 

[ClanOfNone]

Hopefully it drums up enough interest to spark some more Robotech video games. Another cel-shaded one like Battlecry would be amazing on current hardware.

 

[Setzer]

I have a tremendous soft spot for the American run of Robotech. I would wake up at 6am to watch it, glass of Nestlé Quick in hand. I saw most of the first run, and man did I love it. I bought all the novels by McKinney and tore through them as well, I even had a Veritech fighter pilot character in a Rifts campaign.
It wasn't till many years later that I learned the American run was a crazy mishmash of three separate series. I still love it, massive warts and all.

Same. I watched the first run back in '85 when I was 12 and it was like no other animated show that I've seen before and was instantly hooked. Really loved the Macross Saga, both the story and the characters. The show would air around 3pm on weekdays and I would rush home after school so I didn't miss an episode. Right around that time my parents got a Sony Beta player and I went away for a week for this camp thing at School, so I had my younger brother record the episodes so I wouldn't miss anything. It was right towards the end of the Macross Saga....which I had no idea back then. So when I got back from camp and watched the episodes it was basically like the 2-3 of Macross and then it jumped into the Robotech Masters series and as a 12yr old I was completely baffled and upset.....it was like WTF just happened, where is Rick Hunter, Lisa Hayes, Max, etc?!?!! I enjoyed the other two series that followed but for me, neither of them were as enjoyable or memorable as the Macross saga.

 

[Old Retro]

By the time it's released in theaters, gen Xers will be in our 70s

 

[Kraz]

Minmei could be integrated into Rick(i). Elements of their relationship rewritten into R's psychology, As well as maintaining Minmei's singing contribution. Focus on his relationship with Lisa.

Thought came about from thinking about casting Harry Styles as a lead in another movie.