by Chris Eaton: Source: Collider
Will Spike not be flying high over a virtual Mars?
Cowboy Bebop is one of those holy grails in the anime community. Ask any hardcore anime fan, they’ll rank it among the top of all time. Hell, it’s one of the very few dubbed animes that fans will prefer to the original Japanese track. It’s a near perfect piece of moving art and story telling. Perfect for a movie.
Well, when it was announced that Keanu Reeves had acquired the property for a live action movie, fans were miffed. Reeves was talking about playing Spike, the film being based on only the first episode. What the hell? Seems that those people can rest easy.
In a discussion with Collider, Keanu let slip the current status of Cowboy Bebop.
Collider: You were attached to Cowboy Bebop for a little while. Any update on that?
Reeves: I haven’t heard anything back. They turned in the script and it was very expensive. I don’t know if they’re going to…it would cost, like, half a billion dollars to make that script. So, I don’t know where it’s at right now.
From the sound of it, the budget has killed the project.
The one thing I’ll give Keanu (who I do enjoy as an actor) is that he seemed to legitimately love the series, and was set on bringing the most faithful adaptation to the screen. Fox, who has the project, doesn’t want to shell out the cash. The world of Bebop is a very futuristic one, but nothing so spectacular that It’ll cost the area of $200 million. Hell, Joss Whedon did Serenity on a quarter of that. Bebop is something that can work on the big screen, but apparently not under Keanu’s watch. Ce La Vie
