Robotech
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'It' director Andy Muschietti signs on for Sony's 'Robotech' movie
More than 30 years after the original series debuted on television, the classic Mecha anime Robotech will once again grace the silver screen. Sony announced on Monday that it had tapped Andy Muschietti, who just finished directing the reboot of Stephen King's It, to direct the upcoming live-action reboot.
Sony Pictures is planning a 'Robotech' live-action film franchise
We've got good news for you... though it may actually be bad news, depending on how you feel about Hollywood anime adaptations. That live-action Robotech movie might actually happen now that Sony Pictures has officially fished it out of limbo and snapped up its rights from Warner Bros. In fact, the studio's looking at it as a potential film franchise à la Transformers instead of just as a single movie. A handful of new people have also joined the project, including producers Gianni Nunnari and Mark Canton (300, The Immortals), as well as scriptwriter Michael Gordon (300, GI Joe).
Udon handling books for Ace Attorney, Street Fighter, more
Keep an eye on Udon Entertainment if you're looking to expand your gaming-related comic or physical art book collection: the publisher detailed plans for upcoming prints during a panel at Comic-Con San Diego, which involves material from several notable series. Though release dates for this pair were unspecified, art enthusiasts can safely begin anticipating English versions of The Art of Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney: Dual Destinies and Professor Layton Official Fanbook. Gungnir Official Art Chronicle is on its way as well, which celebrates the universe of PSP RPG Gungnir. Udon is continuing work with hardcover editions of the Street Fighter comic series as well, with the publisher describing volume 2 as "almost complete." Alex Culang and Raynato Castro's Katamari comic has been rolled into Udon's Manga Classics line, with a Volume 1 collection coming in December 2014. Also, anyone that's trying to track down a copy of the Street Fighter: World Warrior Encyclopedia can rest easy: Udon will distribute an oversized "special hardcover edition" next year, which will feature new artwork and updated information related to Ultra Street Fighter 4. [Image: Udon]
Rise and Shiny recap: Pockie Ninja
Well, it's nice to finally get back to my regularly scheduled columns after attending E3 last week. I have to say, I loved all of the new games and gadgets that I got to check out at the event, but I missed the rhythm of my columns. So this week I decided to get back to Rise and Shiny in full force by attacking Pockie Ninja, an odd-looking little game that I have been hearing about for quite a while. In fact, it doesn't take much to see that it has grown pretty popular, but I still wasn't sure why. So I signed up (thank you, Facebook connect!) and jumped into the game. It should be noted that a lot of the game has not been translated very well. This is a real problem when you consider some of the learning curve involved in Pockie Ninja. Sure, the English is there, and there are words that I know, but they are often arranged in such a strange order or just come out sounding so... odd that I have no idea what is going on. Click past the cut and let's see if I can explain what I found.
MechWarrior reboot could be caught in trademark dispute
If you were excited about the MechWarrior reboot being teased by Piranha Games, we've got some possibly unfortunate news. Apparently, IGN received a cease-and-desist order from Harmony Gold, the unfortunately named co-owner of the Robotech universe, regarding some imagery in a recent trailer teasing Piranha's project.There's no relation between the two 'verses, but Harmony Gold claims that some of the bots in the trailer are a little too close to a few from Robotech. At this point, we don't know: 1) if those characters really are infringing on Harmony Gold's trademark; or 2) how difficult it would be to remove said characters from the game. So, there's still a chance this dispute may go away. We'll keep an eye on things for you.
Live-action Robotech movie in the works
Not sure if he'd be playing Rick Hunter, Roy Fokker, or even (gasp!) Breetai, but according to the Hollywood Reporter, Tobey Maguire is going to produce, and possibly star in, a live-action movie based on the Robotech TV series which pretty became the entire focus of my life when I was in 5th grade. (You seriously don't want to know how much of my spare time I devoted to tracking down even the most mundane details about the SDF-1, Veritech fighters, the Invid, and protoculture -- or to futilely trying to find a long-rumored VBF-1A Beta fighter to go with the die-cast plastic VAF-6 Alpha fighter I'd bought). Anyone who got into the show in the mid-Eighties will tell you that Robotech had a level of depth and realism well beyond that of any other animated series on US television at the time, which isn't at all surprising considering its Japanese origins (Robotech is credited with helping introduce anime to American audiences). Anyway, hopefully Tobey won't dumb things down like Michael Bay did with the Transformers movie. It was tough enough discovering a few years later that the entire show was actually three entirely different Japanese anime series awkwardly grafted together so that they'd have enough episodes for syndication in the US market -- turning Robotech into yet another mindless action fest might just be too much to take.
