A bit of surprising news to come out of this year’s San Diego Comic-Con; The Russo Brothers, who are most famous for directing the last couple of Avengers and Captain America MCU installments (sorry You, Me, And Dupree fans), have announced that they’re working on adapting the classic Tatsunoko Productions anime Gatchaman. It’s unclear whether this will be a film, live-action or animated, or whether they would actually be directing or not. The only real additional information The Russo Brothers gave was that if they were directing the project themselves, it would be live-action. I don’t want to get my hopes up, but there’s a 10% chance this could end up the spiritual successor to the incredible Wachowski Sister’s live-action Speed Racer.
Gatchaman has had a long history in the United States, although historically not under that name. Science Ninja Team Gatchaman originally aired in the early 1970s and was first brought over to the U.S. under the name Battle Of The Planets in 1978. To our knowledge, The Russo Brothers actually did use this name instead of Gatchaman as its more familiar with Western audiences. Since then, there’s been a whole slew of sequels, spin-offs, and re-imaginings like this generation’s Gatchaman Crowds.
Earlier in the article, I didn’t just bring up the comparison to Speed Racer for kicks. Both the original Street Racer and Gatchaman were Tatsunoko shows that were popular with kids in the 1970s and the old vanguard of O.G. Sci-Fi nerds. While American anime adaptations are usually pretty bad, we got our second good one this year in the form of Alita: Battle Angel. If the Russo’s do direct, and this turns out to be a live-action movie, I imagine it might be pretty similar to the Power Rangers film that came out a couple of years ago. It strongly deviated from the original material, but like Speed Racer, that movie has more heart than you’d expect.
As of now, there’s not much more info to go on about The Russo Brother’s Gatchaman adaptation.