Bandai Namco announced it is working on developing a new live-action Gundam film in collaboration with Legendary.
In a press release, Bandai Namco announced it “signed an agreement in January 2025 to co-finance GUNDAM (tentative name) (referred to as GUNDAM), a Hollywood live-action film adaptation of the Mobile Suit Gundam series.”
The film is being written and directed by Jim Mickle and produced by Legendary.
Bandai Namco also released the first poster for the film alongside the announcement. You can see it below.
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Alongside the announcement of the film, Bandai Namco also announced it was creating a new North American subsidiary called Bandai Namco Filmworks America (BNFA), LLC and it will be producing the movie alongside Legendary.
The press release detailed that this new studio will work to expand Bandai Namco’s “licensing business and the brand value of the Gundam series overseas.”
For those unfamiliar with Mobile Suit Gundam it was originally created by Yoshiyuki Tomino back in 1979. The original anime series is set in a world where the Earth Federation and the Principality of Zeon are at war. The Principality of Zeon is a collection of space colonies that seeks independence from the Earth Federation.
In order to obtain that independence, it launches a surprise attack on the Earth Federation dropping an entire space colony on Earth and initially overwhelming the Earth Federation’s forces with its mobile suit technology, specifically the Zaku.
However, the Earth Federation responds with the development of the RX-78-2 Gundam and the SCV- 70 White Base, a Pegasus-class assault carrier.
The show follows high school student Amuro Ray as he finds himself the pilot of the RX-78-2 Gundam after Char Aznable and Zeon forces infiltrate the space colony where the Gundam was being created and begin to pursue him and the White Base across the stars and even down to Earth.
The show explores various themes from the cost of war, the relationship between man and technology, colonialism and freedom, identity and purpose, and much more.
You can watch the first episode of the anime here:
What do you make of Bandai Namco and Legendary making a live-action film adaptation of the Mobile Suit Gundam series?
There's never a need for a live action adaptation of any anime.
I really hope they don't shit it up with woke values or bad scripting!