Remake Insanity, Part 1: "Cowboy Bebop"

by Chris MaGee

There's a lot of news (some of it quite disturbing) on the remake front today, so I thought I'd break things down. Here's Part 1...

I have to say that it was a real thrill to actually meet (if only briefly) animator Shinichiro Watanbe at the recent screening of "Genius Party" at the Worldwide Short Film Festival here in Toronto, so when I saw this news today my heart sank just a little. Hollywood producer Erwin Stoff is developing a live-action version of Watanbe's best known creation, "Cowboy Bebop" for Fox Studios. Things are the early stages with no director or cast connected with the project yet, so it remains to be seen what kind of talent they'll bring on board.

I'm thinking that Stoff must be figuring that he can not only hook in the fans of the original manga/ series/ movie that followed bounty hunter Spike Spiegel and the crew of The Bebop as they jumped from planet to planet looking for their next paying gig, while at the same time capitalize on at least the superficial similarities between "Bebop" and the cult hit U.S. series "Firefly" created by Joss Whedon which followed its own crew of outlaws as they jumped from planet to planet looking for their next paying gig. Who knows... All I know is that Stoff was one of the producers on Richard Linklater's "A Scanner Darkly" which tried very hard to stay faithful to its Philip K. Dick source material, something that Stoff is shooting to do with "Cowboy Bebop" as well.

Thanks to Tokyograph and Anime News Network for details on this.