Noah Centineo is getting clearance for launch, as the star of Legendary’s upcoming Street Fighter film is now circling the Gundam movie, the company’s other live-action adaptation based on the iconic Japanese mecha franchise.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the actor is in talks to star in the film’s key role alongside Sydney Sweeney (Euphoria). Jim Mickle, best known for his work on 2014’s Cold in July and 2019’s In the Shadow of the Moon, will be directing and writing the script for the upcoming adaptation.
Although plot details of the Gundam movie remain mostly under wraps, the film is set to see Sweeney as its central character, who develops a relationship with a man on the opposite side of a galactic war, similar in vein to the Shakespeare classic Romeo and Juliet. Although unconfirmed, it’s likely that Centineo will take on the role of her on-screen counterpart if final talks go through.
Originally launched in 1979 by creator Yoshiyuki Tomino, the Mobile Suit Gundam anime not only pioneered the “real robot” subgenre of anime but also spawned a multimedia empire. Its plot followed an intergalactic war between the Principality of Zeon, a faction formed by colonies outside Earth, and the Earth Federation in a fight for independence, deploying massive robots known as Mobile Suits, also known as Gundam.
With such a massive series to draw inspiration from, with the Gundam franchise being an empire of TV shows, movies and spin-offs, it’s also unclear if the movie will adapt the events of the original 1979 anime, or even possibly the franchise’s latest entry, Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX, which released this year. Either way, after almost five decades of animation legacy, fans are no doubt waiting with bated breath for Legendary to finally bring the iconic mecha to life.
Kevin is a reformed PC Master Race gamer with a penchant for franchise “duds” like Darksiders III and Dead Space 3. He has made it his life-long mission to play every single major game release – lest his wallet dies trying.
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Ting Wei
