The live-action Gundam movie has been in the works for the better part of a decade, and the Legendary-produced project has taken one step closer to becoming a reality today with the potential addition of Black Adam star Noah Centineo.
Drew Starkey (Queer) is no longer in talks to lead the movie alongside Sydney Sweeney, but Centineo—whose star is very much on the rise—is now said to be in active discussions with the studio. The actor will play Ken Masters in the upcoming Street Fighter reboot, and has been tapped as the lead character in Lionsgate's Rambo prequel.
According to Nexus Point News (via SFFGazette.com), "Sources point to the film adapting Mobile Suit Gundam: The 08th MS Team, a gritty, ground-level story set during the One Year War. The original series follows a squad of Earth Federation soldiers battling Zeon forces in the jungles of Southeast Asia while exploring themes of loyalty, tragedy, and the human cost of war."
"At its heart is a star-crossed romance between a Federation officer and a woman from Zeon, a dynamic the film will mirror, with Sweeney playing a young woman on a mission to avenge her father and Starkey potentially portraying her rival and love interest from the Earth Federation," the site explains.
Sweet Tooth's Jim Mickle is attached to write and direct Gundam, though the movie was originally set to be helmed by Jordan Vogt-Roberts when it was first announced in 2021. Mickle's take will be the first time we've seen Gundam adapted in live-action.
The pioneer of the sci-fi subgenre known as "mecha," revolving around giant fighting robots, Gundam is a long-running multimedia franchise which kicked off with the anime series Mobile Suit Gundam in 1979. Created by Yoshiyuki Tomino, the franchise generates around $1 billion annually.
Legendary, Bandai, and Namco first agreed to co-finance a Gundam movie in 2018 and, earlier this year, shared a brief update on live-action plans for a franchise that's so far encompassed 25 anime series, 34 animated films, and 27 original animated productions.
"We plan to steadily announce details as they become finalized. Mobile Suit Gundam, which began broadcasting in 1979, established the genre of 'real robot anime' that could not be described in terms of simple good and evil, which had been the trend of robot anime up to that point, with realistic depictions of war, detailed scientific examinations, and intricately interwoven human dramas that treated robots as 'weapons' called 'mobile suits,' and caused a huge boom."
During a recent interview with MovieWeb, Sweeney was asked if there's been any movement on Gundam and teased, "There is every single day."
Production on Gundam is expected to begin in Australia next Spring.