Sci-Fi Film and Television Developments

Voltron

7/21/11 - Relativity Media has option the feature film rights to Voltron from World Event Prods. and is planning a live-action, big-screen version, according to The Hollywood Reporter.  Atlas Entertainment’s Charles Roven and Richard Suckle, who brought the project to Relativity, will oversee its transition to the screen.  Thomas Dean Donnelly and Joshua Oppenheimer are writing the screenplay about five young pilots in a battalion of ultra-high-tech Robot Lions, powerful vessels with the ability to join together to form a fearsome mega-weapon known as Voltron.  Producing along with Roven and Suckle is Kickstart Entertainment’s Jason Netter. World Events Prods.’ Ted Koplar will exec produce.

6/11/10 - Voltron still has sights on the big screen, MTV News reported.  Voltron producers Richard Suckle and Ted Koplar cleared up their plans. Suckle thinks they could have a Voltron movie in theaters by 2013. The movie could be in 3-D, too.  "It's not like we're doing anything far different from the source material, other than to make it a character-driven film," Suckle said. "The effects, the 3-D, the eye candy is the easy part. It's got to be a movie that has really dynamic, interesting characters and a really strong narrative. You know the eye candy is going to be there, because it's part of the fabric of the original material."  So what's the story of the movie going to be? It better have something to do with five lion robots turning into an even bigger robot. "As much as it has a very strong robot element, this is a movie and a franchise driven by characters," Suckle said. "These five people some [way] or another are a representation of all of us. It's really about how you have five different personalities working together in order to come together as Voltron."  Koplar said, The whole show is about teamwork, about a group of kids with various backgrounds who learn that the only way they'll succeed is through the positive parts of each one's background and bringing it together to make the robot work."

7/20/09 - Atlas Entertainment's Charles Roven, Richard Suckle and Steve Alexander acquired the rights to Voltron, based on the Japanese anime properties that were later edited as a U.S. TV show in the '80s.  The Hollywood Reporter's Risky Biz blog reported Roven and his partners acquired rights to the Japanese title from World Events Productions, a St. Louis-based company that has held those rights for more than two decades. Jason Netter of Kickstart Entertainment and World Events' Ted Koplar are joining the Atlas trio in producing.  Voltron, a television hit in the 1980s that has retained a loyal fan following, features a Transformers-like conceit, in which a band of five robot lions combines to form one super lion. A group of five pilots control the lions, which are charged with defending the planet Arus from villain King Zarkon, who dispatches evil creatures called Robobeats to fight the Voltron robots.

9/4/08 - Relativity Media may put Voltron: Defender of the Universe in the hands of helmer Max Makowski, Variety reported.  The director most recently penned the big-screen adaptation of the TV series Hawaii Five-O for Warner Brothers and is also attached to direct Warners' feature based on the series Kung Fu.  Makowski is in talks to take on the project after New Regency recently put the giant-robot project into turnaround after opting to focus on producing more high-brow fare.  Justin Marks wrote the live-action adaptation of the Japanese animated series of the 1980s, which revolves around a sword-wielding robot that helps battle Earth's invaders.

8/18/08 - Fox-based New Regency has put Voltron: Defender of the Universe, an SF movie based on the animated Japanese TV series, into turnaround, meaning the project is now in limbo, Variety reported.

08/10/07 - New Regency has partnered with the Mark Gordon Co. to adapt Voltron: Defender of the Universe, the 1980s Japanese animated SF TV show, into a feature film.  Producer Mark Gordon has been developing the movie, with Justin Marks writing the script.  The film is described as a post-apocalyptic tale of survival set in New York City and Mexico.  Based on the animated show, five Galaxy Alliance pilots control vehicles shaped like lions that combine and form the massive sword-wielding Voltron robot in order to battle an evil menace.

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