In not altogether surprising news, the live-action Gundam movie is getting a new director and moving away from Netflix.
Previously, Netflix was going to handle the distribution of this live-action movie along with Jordan Vogt Roberts attached to direct.
However, now that Gundam: Requiem for Vengeance has finally been released and hasn’t exactly done all that great, it appears that the prior setup has now been dropped in favor of a new director and with no involvement from Netflix.
As reported by Deadline, the new director will be Jim Mickle, and I think that is an interesting and good choice. Not that Jordan Vogt Roberts was a bad choice, as he clearly cared about Gundam, but he was likely collateral damage with how Requiem for Vengeance landed in terms of its recent viewer count.
Mickle will also produce this new Gundam live-action movie along with his partner Linda Moran, which bodes well as their Sweet Tooth drama has been genuinely and consistently excellent.
Sweet Tooth is also a noteworthy work because it shares some parallels with how it deals with younger protagonists, which is an important and core staple of the Gundam saga.
That aside, it’s worth highlighting that the Deadline piece does get some things wrong about Gundam. The first is that last year Gundam actually generated $1 billion in revenue last year, rather than $600 million, and the second is that this live-action film will be the second for the Gundam franchise.
The first Gundam live-action movie was, in fact, G-Saviour back in 1999, which was to commemorate the then 20th anniversary of the saga. For many fans, G-Saviour tends to be thought of as being a pretty poor instalment in the Gundam franchise, but it has its charms. It also spawned a surprisingly decent PlayStation 2 game for the era.
All that aside, it seems that Sunrise and Legendary Pictures are pivoting away from the Netflix model for this live-action movie and are moving more towards something that may fit Gundam better overall.
It’s still too early to say how this new setup will work out, but for now, I am cautiously optimistic. Not least because this will now dodge the curse of being a Netflix live-action adaptation.
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