There was a time when the notion
of producing a live-action adaptation of a videogame was automatically a bad
idea. Now, gaming fans know that if a movie studio does its homework with the
source material, is willing to give it a budget, and will actually listen to community
input, the results could be, if not a critic-winner then a sure-fire
blockbuster. Recent examples are not hard to find with last year’s “Pokémon:
Detective Pikachu” from Warner Bros. and Nintendo, and the pre-COVID smash hit “Sonic
the Hedgehog” from Paramount and Sega. Encouraged by these results, it is now
Capcom’s turn to (finally) get cinematic.
IGN.com tells us that the long-incubating project to create a
live-action (if CGI-heavy) film of the Capcom videogame character “Mega Man”
might have gotten some new infusion of life towards full development. This was
revealed during the virtual San Diego Comic-Con@Home event that ran since last
week from July 22 and ending this Sunday, July 26. The dormant movie’s slated
directors, Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman, dropped some mall hints on the conceptualization
of “Mega Man” in the middle of their online panel for their current upcoming
Netflix original film, “Project Power” starring Jamie Foxx.
Schulman and Joost affirmed that
there is still progress on realizing “Mega Man” for the big screen and that
they hope to drop some “big news” about it soon. What the directors can share
is that they may have gotten a new member for their production posse from
working on “Project Power,” namely the screenwriter Mattson Tomlin. "We
had such a great time working with Mattson on Project Power that we invited him
in to help us out with Mega Man,” says Joost. “I can’t say all that much right
now, but it’s a project very near and dear to our hearts and we’re
psyched."
Capcom’s “Mega Man,” originally “Rockman”
in Japan, first appeared for the Nintendo Family Computer/NES in 1987,
eventually generating sequels and spinoffs in a multitude of gaming platforms
over the decades. Based by its original creators on the iconic manga/anime “Astro
Boy,” Mega Man is a robot boy empowered to fight off rebellions of evil
reprogrammed machines created by villains ranging from mad scientists to
sentient computer viruses. Ariel Schulman and Henry Joost (“Paranormal Activity
3”) have secured directing duties for the adaptation from Capcom, filming under
20th Century Fox, now Disney subsidiary 20th Century
Studios.
Joost and Schulman’s movie, “Project
Power” on Netflix, features Jamie Foxx as a father who stumbles upon a street
drug that gives people superhuman abilities for five minutes. It will arrive on
the streaming platform next month, on August 14.
Image courtesy of GameSpot
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