A live-action television series adaptation of the 1998 television anime Cowboy Bebop will be produced by Marty Adelstein’s Tomorrow Studios and ITV Studios. The adaptation will be written by Chris Yost (Thor: The Dark World, Thor: Ragnarok).
The studio Sunrise, which animated the original series, will executive produce the live-action series. Other executive producers will include Adelstein (Prison Break, Teen Wolf), Becky Clements (Good Behavior, Aquarius), Matthew Weinberg and Midnight Radio (Josh Appelbaum, Andre Nemec, Jeff Pinkner and Scott Rosenberg).
Cowboy Bebop is set in a world of distant future where Spike Spiegel and his group of bounty hunters try to capture the galaxy’s worst criminals and survive the unexpected dangers they encounter throughout space. The series aired in 1998 in Japan as a 26-episode series.
Adelstein said, “We are excited to work with Sunrise in bringing this beloved anime to the US and global marketplace as a live-action series. The animated version has long resonated with audiences worldwide, and with the continued, ever growing, popularity of anime, we believe a live-action version will have an incredible impact today.”
A critical and commercial success both in Japanese and international markets, the anime series garnered several major anime and science fiction awards, and received universal praise for its style, characters, story, voice acting, animation, and soundtrack.
Commenting on the proposed Hollywood live-action adaptation of the anime at the 2014 MCM London Comicon, series director Shinichiro Watanabe said, “I’m afraid I don’t know what they’re thinking in Hollywood. Apparently the project hasn’t come to a stop but I don’t know how it’s going to progress from here on. I hear that there are a lot of ‘Hollywood’ problems.” The director also said he had no interest in creating an animated Cowboy Bebop sequel unless he thought he “could do better (than) last time. If I feel that way, I might make more but I don’t know when that would happen.”
An anime film titled Cowboy Bebop: The Movie was released in Japan on September 2001 and in the US in 2003. 20th Century Fox, 3 Arts Entertainment and Sunrise had announced in January 2009 that they would be co-producing a live-action adaptation of the anime. Joshua Long had acted as a production supervisor, and producer Erwin Stoff was also attached. Kenji Uchida, Shinichiro Watanabe, and series writer Keiko Nobumoto were confirmed as associate producers, with the original series producer Masahiko Minami as a production consultant, and Peter Craig as screenwriter.