Looks like Warner Bros has scooped up the rights to Robotech, and have partnered with Tobey Maguire, who will produce and likely star as "Rick Hunter" ..
-----------
This definitely seems like a reaction to the success of Transformers; though this is more than 'yet another' 80's cartoon adaptation, since Robotech is itself a 're-adaptation' of three pre-existing japanese anime TV series (Super-Dimension Fortress Macross, Super-Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross, and Genesis Climber Mospeada).
It will be interesting to see whether the rights for the designs and concepts from those three anime series will be able to be negotiated from japanese rights-holder Bandai for use in the movie, since even the U.S. production company Harmony Gold hasn't been permitted to use any of them in its newer Robotech projects.
Robotech: the movie
-
- AV Forum Member
- Posts: 1928
- Joined: December 16th, 2004
- Location: Burbank, Calif.
J/K
Re: Robotech: the movie
droosan wrote:This definitely seems like a reaction to the success of Transformers; though this is more than 'yet another' 80's cartoon adaptation, since Robotech is itself a 're-adaptation' of three pre-existing japanese anime TV series (Super-Dimension Fortress Macross, Super-Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross, and Genesis Climber Mospeada).
It will be interesting to see whether the rights for the designs and concepts from those three anime series will be able to be negotiated from japanese rights-holder Bandai for use in the movie, since even the U.S. production company Harmony Gold hasn't been permitted to use any of them in its newer Robotech projects.
Heh.
This will take as long to produce as Spider-Man (the Movie) did!
Macross/Robotech is in such a legal messs that it's not funny.
For any American studio to seriously go ahead with it, they'll have to pay major money and buy out the film rights to Macross/Robotech on BOTH sides of the Pacific!
Anybody with business sense will know why a lawsuit will happen -- because a live-action Robotech or Macross has a potential to make tons of money.
The international rights situation with Macross should have been resolved years ago but it didn't because of a vaguely worded agreement between Tatsunoko Productions (co-financier and international distributor of the original Macross TV series) and Big West, the main rights holder of the Macross IP.
Basically, a Japanese court ruled that Tatsunoko has the right to internationally distribute the ORIGINAL Macross TV series but that Studio Nue and Big West hold the rights to the original character and mecha designs.
Note that I said Tatsunoko only has the rights to the ORIGINAL Macross -- not the sequels which it had very little to do with if at all. Tatsunoko, however, does retain licensing rights to Genesis Climber Mospeada and Super Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross which make up the other two-thirds of Robotech. Those show have nothing to do with the Macross in general -- they are only part of the Robotech derivative. Robotech is NOT a literal translation of Macross; it's a loose adaptation with its own continuity and vastly different sequels that have nothing to do with the Macross universe in general.
The Tokyo court ruling was a half-assed one that has kept any new Macross after Macross Plus from coming to American shores and has basically meant that the international popularity of the Macross franchise has stagnated as a result.
Frankly, I believe Big West probably has the greater stake of the claim but I doubt they'd have been smart enough to keep the licensing costs to Macross low enough even IF the Japanese courts had granted them full control of the franchise. One of the things that kept Gundam from coming to the States was the outrageous amount of money that IP holder wanted for the FULL series to be released in the States. The Gundam IP holders wanted $20 million! They just were not going to get that from any American company, let alone the small companies licensing anime in the US, period. The potential anime market in the US has been overestimated by most Japanese companies and the licensing is ridiculously expensive for most domestic companies now.
The Robotech/Macross situation is a bit different than most anime, however. It's been around over 20 years in various TV and home video incarnations and has a large international crossover audience that spans animation, general animation, fantasy/adventure, and science fiction fanbases.
Harmony Gold is a very small company and it took them over 20 years to realize a true animated sequel to Robotech. They'll hardly be a big player in any Macross or Robotech live-action movie as they seem to not want to spend more than a miniscule amount of money on their own part. Over ten years ago, Big West tried to put together a live-action Macross movie but it fell apart shortly after it was announced and has been stillborn since.
I really think the whole rights situation will kill any movie based on said designs and storyline until massive amounts of money change hands and all the interested producers get on the same page... Depending on how smart or greedy somebody is, the whole Macross franchise could end up belonging to some entity other than Big West in the end! THAT could be a good thing, or a BAD thing.
Update on status of live-action Robotech...
http://www.iesb.net/index.php?option=co ... nk&id=1592
The executive producer is saying nothing's finalized yet.
The script isn't even done!
Tobey Maguire is involved as a producer (no casting done yet), but I'm really concerned about Akiva Goldsman's involvement. Batman and Lost in Space fans will appreciate my concerns about his past "efforts."
I've heard rumors that vehicle designs will have to be changed since Harmony Gold (the rights holders to Robotech which is a derivative of three Japanese series) DOESN'T own the designs to the original Macross vehicles. Everybody expecting a Tomcat-like VF-1 Valkyrie will probably be disappointed. Likewise, don't expect the SDF-1 to look like the SDF-1.
Bummer... but the legal entanglements still exist.
http://www.iesb.net/index.php?option=co ... nk&id=1592
The executive producer is saying nothing's finalized yet.
The script isn't even done!
Tobey Maguire is involved as a producer (no casting done yet), but I'm really concerned about Akiva Goldsman's involvement. Batman and Lost in Space fans will appreciate my concerns about his past "efforts."
I've heard rumors that vehicle designs will have to be changed since Harmony Gold (the rights holders to Robotech which is a derivative of three Japanese series) DOESN'T own the designs to the original Macross vehicles. Everybody expecting a Tomcat-like VF-1 Valkyrie will probably be disappointed. Likewise, don't expect the SDF-1 to look like the SDF-1.
Bummer... but the legal entanglements still exist.
They brought on more writers to the live-action project...
That is almost NEVER a good sign with a project. Too many cooks!
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/20 ... ew-writers
"The Hollywood Reporter newspaper reports that Alfred Gough and Miles Millar have signed onto the proposed film adaptation of the Robotech animated series. Gough and Millar co-wrote Spider-Man 2, Herbie Fully Loaded, and The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, and they also produced the first seven seasons of the Smallville television series. Robotech was Harmony Gold's edited and rewritten adaptation of three separate anime science-fiction series: The Super Dimension Fortress Macross, The Super Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross, and Genesis Climber Mospeada. The producers have yet to announce which, if any, of the three anime that the Warner Brothers project will most follow, or how it will deal with the copyright dispute between Harmony Gold's partner Tatsunoko Production and the creators of Macross (the most popular of the three anime).
Gough and Millar will be the third writer team to be attached to the film. Craig Zahler was the originally assigned writer, but no new word has been given on his status on the project. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Lawrence Kasdan wrote a draft, but Gough and Millar were recruited to "bring action and geek cred to the table.""
*****************
I'll be frank -- I don't care for what these guys have been attached to.
Kasdan's good, but the other guys are mediocre at best.
The fact that they haven't nailed down WHICH series will be the visual basis of the project isn't a good sign.
Most likely, it's going to be entirely new designs and will end up being very different from what came before.
Good thing the original show is on home video! I'll be saving my $9 when it comes out to theatres...
That is almost NEVER a good sign with a project. Too many cooks!
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/20 ... ew-writers
"The Hollywood Reporter newspaper reports that Alfred Gough and Miles Millar have signed onto the proposed film adaptation of the Robotech animated series. Gough and Millar co-wrote Spider-Man 2, Herbie Fully Loaded, and The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, and they also produced the first seven seasons of the Smallville television series. Robotech was Harmony Gold's edited and rewritten adaptation of three separate anime science-fiction series: The Super Dimension Fortress Macross, The Super Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross, and Genesis Climber Mospeada. The producers have yet to announce which, if any, of the three anime that the Warner Brothers project will most follow, or how it will deal with the copyright dispute between Harmony Gold's partner Tatsunoko Production and the creators of Macross (the most popular of the three anime).
Gough and Millar will be the third writer team to be attached to the film. Craig Zahler was the originally assigned writer, but no new word has been given on his status on the project. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Lawrence Kasdan wrote a draft, but Gough and Millar were recruited to "bring action and geek cred to the table.""
*****************
I'll be frank -- I don't care for what these guys have been attached to.
Kasdan's good, but the other guys are mediocre at best.
The fact that they haven't nailed down WHICH series will be the visual basis of the project isn't a good sign.
Most likely, it's going to be entirely new designs and will end up being very different from what came before.
Good thing the original show is on home video! I'll be saving my $9 when it comes out to theatres...
-
- AV Forum Member
- Posts: 5200
- Joined: September 27th, 2007
Nowadays, Kasdan (the post-"Grand Canyon" one, no relation to the "Empire Strikes Back" oneGeorgeC wrote:They brought on more writers to the live-action project...
Kasdan's good, but the other guys are mediocre at best.
) is mediocre at best--I'd think having Akiva Goldsman on the project would be even GREATER case for worry.
Uh, the "three series" bit was just a bit of library backstory from the reporters--The fact that they haven't nailed down WHICH series will be the visual basis of the project isn't a good sign.
I'm going with the more likely general assumption the producers don't even know there were two other series...
-
- AV Forum Member
- Posts: 1928
- Joined: December 16th, 2004
- Location: Burbank, Calif.
On a happy note, I recently discovered that Super-Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross and Genesis Climber Mospeada are now available in a ten-disc DVD boxed set from AD Vision; the original japanese versions, with english subtitles.
Droo,
The ADV sets are just re-issues of the last printings of Southern Cross and Mospeada. Same content, same godawful brickpacks I wish everybody would stop using! On the other hand, they are really economical and the best way to get these series now! Mospeada, in particular, is a good show if not an obvious Macross clone itself, too.
The Macross thinkpak ADV also released is pricier but you've gotta understand ADV has to pay for its dub of the show.
The ADV Macross English audio is 5.1 and pristine, but the Japanese audio is obviously not the best material available. I have the earlier AnimEigo subtitle-only version of Macross on DVD and the audio on that is far superior. I don't know why but ADV obviously didn't have access to the same Japanese audio files AnimEigo did OR couldn't get them for whatever reasons. The video on both versions is the same remastered video AnimEigo spent $250,000 on.
Copies of the AnimEigo Macross set are still widely available on the web and at the official Robotech site BUT the ADV release does edge it out because of the dub and all the extras on the ADV release. There are really very few extras on the AnimEigo Macross release but it is the better-sounding Japanese audio version.
***************
I would suggest WB gets its checkbook out and buy the rights to the Macross designs.
Older fans are NOT gonna like it if they start out at the beginning of the story cycle and produce something that doesn't look like the SDF-1 or VF-1 Valkyrie. People are still expecting a story that feels like the original and LOOKS like it, too.
(On the subject of the VF-1 mockups, WB could do worse than to buy a half-dozen demilitarized F-14 Tomcat airframes from Davis-Monthan Air Force Base and modify them into VF-1s. I suggest six minimum for all the different paint jobs in the first series. Probably cheaper than building the things from scratch and less work, too, considering the Tomcat IS the basis for the VF-1 design!)
Gee, it's like designing a Starship Enterprise that DOESN'T look like the Original Series ship!
But seriously, a few million $$$ changes hands and hopefully one more headache is taken care of.
There are going to be great expectations for the film. I don't know that people are going to stand another Transformers-type rehash. There are many, many Robotech fans out there.
And yes, Goldsman is one of the biggest hacks in Hollywood now. It is good that he's not writing the movie, though. Regardless of what Oscar says, he's proven that even half the guys writing comics today are better writers than him.
The ADV sets are just re-issues of the last printings of Southern Cross and Mospeada. Same content, same godawful brickpacks I wish everybody would stop using! On the other hand, they are really economical and the best way to get these series now! Mospeada, in particular, is a good show if not an obvious Macross clone itself, too.
The Macross thinkpak ADV also released is pricier but you've gotta understand ADV has to pay for its dub of the show.
The ADV Macross English audio is 5.1 and pristine, but the Japanese audio is obviously not the best material available. I have the earlier AnimEigo subtitle-only version of Macross on DVD and the audio on that is far superior. I don't know why but ADV obviously didn't have access to the same Japanese audio files AnimEigo did OR couldn't get them for whatever reasons. The video on both versions is the same remastered video AnimEigo spent $250,000 on.
Copies of the AnimEigo Macross set are still widely available on the web and at the official Robotech site BUT the ADV release does edge it out because of the dub and all the extras on the ADV release. There are really very few extras on the AnimEigo Macross release but it is the better-sounding Japanese audio version.
***************
I would suggest WB gets its checkbook out and buy the rights to the Macross designs.
Older fans are NOT gonna like it if they start out at the beginning of the story cycle and produce something that doesn't look like the SDF-1 or VF-1 Valkyrie. People are still expecting a story that feels like the original and LOOKS like it, too.
(On the subject of the VF-1 mockups, WB could do worse than to buy a half-dozen demilitarized F-14 Tomcat airframes from Davis-Monthan Air Force Base and modify them into VF-1s. I suggest six minimum for all the different paint jobs in the first series. Probably cheaper than building the things from scratch and less work, too, considering the Tomcat IS the basis for the VF-1 design!)
Gee, it's like designing a Starship Enterprise that DOESN'T look like the Original Series ship!
But seriously, a few million $$$ changes hands and hopefully one more headache is taken care of.
There are going to be great expectations for the film. I don't know that people are going to stand another Transformers-type rehash. There are many, many Robotech fans out there.
And yes, Goldsman is one of the biggest hacks in Hollywood now. It is good that he's not writing the movie, though. Regardless of what Oscar says, he's proven that even half the guys writing comics today are better writers than him.
-
- AV Forum Member
- Posts: 1347
- Joined: January 23rd, 2006
- Location: The Middle of Nowhere
I wasn't tremendously impressed with Gough and Millar's work on The Mummy, but I am a fan of Smallville and I like what they did on Spider-Man, so I'll be crossing my fingers and hoping they do a good job here. I smell a potential trilogy, though, because it would be pretty hard to condense Macross to one movie.
The Official Lugofilm Ltd Youtube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/bartsimpson83
-
- AV Forum Member
- Posts: 1928
- Joined: December 16th, 2004
- Location: Burbank, Calif.
The original creators of Super-Dimension Fortress Macross were able to do just that in 1984, with the movie Do You Remember Love ..
.. mind you; they had to start the story in the middle .. and condense/combine the TV series' main plot points by quite a bit.
But it is an awesome movie .. perhaps the very best anime 'TV-to-film' adaptation ever made.
It's a shame we'll probably never see it get a legitimate U.S. release (as DYRL is yet another victim of Macross' complex international distribution rights difficulties).
----------------------
Here's the opening dogfight sequence, via YouTube:
The animation was the most expensive and detailed produced in Japan (until Akira came along, four years later).
.. mind you; they had to start the story in the middle .. and condense/combine the TV series' main plot points by quite a bit.
But it is an awesome movie .. perhaps the very best anime 'TV-to-film' adaptation ever made.
It's a shame we'll probably never see it get a legitimate U.S. release (as DYRL is yet another victim of Macross' complex international distribution rights difficulties).
----------------------
Here's the opening dogfight sequence, via YouTube:
The animation was the most expensive and detailed produced in Japan (until Akira came along, four years later).
DYRL is a beautiful film, no doubt, but you have to see it with at least a decent subtitling to appreciate it. It's a hard film to sit through without at least that!
(P.S. -- Decent subs exist. You just have to look for them. T****** is your friend!)
I still like the TV version of Macross better, but no question the money spent on the movie shows on the big screen and it's one of the few anime features I've seen that holds up well today.
I think it'll get some kind of release in the US one day, whether it's a grey release (possible Japanese version with actual subtitles and the atrocious Japanese-produced 80's dub), or maybe even a possible license deal with a large American studio if it can be worked out. It looks less and less likely that it's going to a be small company like ADV or AnimEigo that would get the rights to DYRL.
In the meantime, an official release of DYRL in the US could be one of the few GOOD things that could happen from this Robotech project. The more I hear about the pre-production, the more I'm convinced that it'd be for the best if the live-action project got shelved! I'm not liking most of the names I'm hearing involved with it.
(P.S. -- Decent subs exist. You just have to look for them. T****** is your friend!)
I still like the TV version of Macross better, but no question the money spent on the movie shows on the big screen and it's one of the few anime features I've seen that holds up well today.
I think it'll get some kind of release in the US one day, whether it's a grey release (possible Japanese version with actual subtitles and the atrocious Japanese-produced 80's dub), or maybe even a possible license deal with a large American studio if it can be worked out. It looks less and less likely that it's going to a be small company like ADV or AnimEigo that would get the rights to DYRL.
In the meantime, an official release of DYRL in the US could be one of the few GOOD things that could happen from this Robotech project. The more I hear about the pre-production, the more I'm convinced that it'd be for the best if the live-action project got shelved! I'm not liking most of the names I'm hearing involved with it.
-
- AV Forum Member
- Posts: 178
- Joined: November 24th, 2008
- Location: Missouri, US
- Contact:
