A Mega Man Live-Action Adaptation Is Back In The Works
It looks like Mega Man may be the latest character to get the live-action treatment. This time, it's in Netflix's hands.
This article is more than 2 years old
With an unquestionable rush from studios to capitalize on video game properties after years of them being Hollywood suicide, it looks like Mega Man may be the latest character to get the live-action treatment. This time, it’s in Netflix’s hands. In 2018, Capcom announced that it was working on a live-action adaptation of Mega Man, who got his start in side-scrollers in 1987. The feature film will be written and directed by Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman, best known for Catfish. However, at the time, it was announced that it would be done for 20th Century Fox. According to a new post on production company Supermache’s website, it is working on the same Mega Man project that was announced by Capcom.
However, the new Mega Man project is now going to be done for Netflix. Unfortunately, the mention on the company’s website is all the confirmation there is about a Mega Man project at Netflix right now. The streaming giant has not openly acknowledged the news so it’s all therefore up in the air. However, the project moving forward is in keeping with comments made by Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman in the summer of 2020.
Speaking on IGN’s Comic-Con@Home livestream, the writing and directing duo said that, although there hadn’t been any concrete news about the Mega Man for two years, it was very much still in the works and a project that is near and dear to their hearts. Schulman noted at the time that Mega Man was the first video game he ever played.
He’s likely not alone. The character hit the Nintendo scene in 1987 and quickly captivated video game fans who were, at that time, small but incredibly dedicated. For those unfamiliar, in his original series, which has been adapted to many different video games and TV shows over the years, Mega Man was a robot created to assist a pair of doctors. However, when one betrayed the other and began flooding the world with murderous robots, Mega Man was converted to a battle bot whose mission is to stop the treachery and save the world.
The Verge notes that Mega Man is just the latest in a long string of streamers and movie studios seeing new viability in adapting video games. For years they were coveted for their name recognition but duds like Street Fighter, the original Mortal Kombat and Tomb Raider movies proved that players like to actively play these characters rather than passively watch them. However, The last few years alone have seen successful projects like a new Mortal Kombat, Netflix’s The Witcher series, Monster Hunter, Tomb Raider and more. Meanwhile, in the pipeline, there’s a Halo TV series while movies like The Last of Us and Uncharted are casting A-list stars to helm them.
Film and video game experts would have likely said just five years ago that there’s no way to adapt a popular video game for film or TV. That was largely based on the fact that so many had tried and failed. If you’re feeling compelled to defend the original Resident Evil movies, I urge you not to die on that hill. The truth is that perhaps what people are learning now is not that there’s no way to do it, but that the code wasn’t cracked yet. Now, with upcoming projects like Mega Man and the success of Sonic The Hedgehog, we may be closer than ever before.
