With the success of Transformers is it any surprise that the anime classic “Robotech” is about to make its way to the big screen? Probably not, but is it a surprise that Tobey Maguire will be slipping into the armor for the flick? Craig Zahler has been tapped to write the screenplay.
Word out of The Hollywood Reporter is that Warner Bros. Pictures has picked up the rights to bring “Robotech” to the big screen. Maguire is producing through his Maguire Entertainment banner and is eyeing the lead role in what the studio plans on being a tentpole sci-fi franchise.
“We are very excited to bring ‘Robotech’ to the big screen,” Maguire told The Hollywood Reporter. “There is a rich mythology that will be a great foundation for a sophisticated, smart and entertaining film.”
“Robotech” was a cartoon series during the 1980s from Harmony Gold USA and Tatsunoko Prods. It was re-edited and re-dialogued to combine three Japanese anime series to give the producers enough episodes to air as a daily syndicated series.
A sprawling sci-fi epic, “Robotech” takes place at a time when Earth has developed giant robots from the technology on an alien spacecraft that crashed on a South Pacific isle. Mankind is forced to use the technology to fend off three successive waves of alien invasions. The first invasion concerns a battle with a race of giant warriors who seek to retrieve their flagship’s energy source known as “protoculture,” and the planet’s survival ends up in the hands of two young pilots.
There was no word on a production start date.
