It’s been a while since we’ve heard about the live-action Netflix adaptation of Cowboy Bebop. While production has taken a backseat due to the coronavirus and lead star John Cho a.k.a Spike Spiegel recently recovering from injury, director Javier Grillo-Marxuach gave an update on the status of the series and how it compares to the orignal 1998 anime.
Speaking to io9, Grillo-Marxuach explained how the adaptation will expand upon the original in terms of lore and characters. He confirmed that each episode will run for an hour long, following the typical Netflix Originals format, as opposed to the 22-minute run times of the original show.
“You’ve got a show where you have 26 episodes that are full of very colorful villains, very colorful stories, very colorful adversaries, bounties, and all of that,” said Grillo-Marxuach. “We’re not going to go one-to-one on all of those stories because we’re also trying to tell the broader story of Spike Spiegel and the Syndicate, Spike Spiegel and Julia, Spike Spiegel and Vicious, and all that.”
But we are looking at the show and saying, ‘Who are some of the great villains in this show, and how can we put them into this into this broader narrative?’ So that we are telling both of the big stories that Cowboy Bebop tells.
That said, Grillo-Marxuach maintains that despite wanting to explore these aspects of Cowboy Bebop to a slightly larger degree, the show will still retain the essence of what made the anime so beloved among fans.
“You can’t look at Cowboy Bebop and say, ‘Well, it’s just a take-off point. We’re going to give them different hair and different clothing, and we’re gonna call it something different. And it’s just sort of gonna be a loose thing,’” he said. “If you’re doing Cowboy Bebop, you’re doing Cowboy Bebop. You know? It’s kind of like doing Star Wars.”
Grillo-Marxuach has yet to announce when shoots will resume, given the current global situation, but he said that fans might have to wait as early as 2021 for Cowboy Bebop to be released. At present, however, a second season for the live-action series is already being written, with plans for more seasons somewhere in the pipeline. Grillo-Marxuach has yet to confirm when Season 2 will begin filming, let alone be released.
Marion has a serious RPG addiction. Sometimes it bleeds into real life; he forgets to sleep because he thinks he has a Witcher’s body clock. Forgive him in advance if he suddenly blurts out terms such as “Mind Flayer” and “Magic Missile”, because never once does he stop thinking about his next Dungeons & Dragons game.
Natalie
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