Since the move away from Netflix, the Gundam live-action movie lives on and is already looking to fill its cast, starting with Sydney Sweeney.
According to Deadline, Sydney Sweeney has been approached to appear in the upcoming live-action Gundam movie, and they are in final discussions regarding the casting.
Also, while Deadline seems to think this, mecha is not a sub-genre of anything, especially as there are plenty of fantasy mecha shows out there, among many, many others.
This news about Sweeney partly feeds into rumors about the movie being about a love story between mobile suit pilots on opposing sides of a war.
If this sounds familiar, that’s because Gundam has already trodden this ground before, in both Gundam 0080 and, more overtly, in Gundam 08th MS Team.
While both those OVA series were great, the big issue here is that they had multiple episodes to handle such a story properly.
There are very few decent standalone Gundam anime movies out there, and that’s because Gundam’s longevity has been based on its complex and nuanced long-form narrative.
All the political intrigue and intricacies surrounding Newtypes and their various ilk are often the backbone for any major Gundam work.
Compressing that down to a 90 minute or even 2 hour runtime will lose a lot of that, which is why the “love story” rumor about this live-action adaptation makes sense.
It still won’t work, and I am just hoping that someone somewhere figures this out before it’s too late. Especially as Hollywood’s track record with anime and manga adaptations has been entirely abysmal.
Gundam already has had one major international trainwreck in the form of the cumbersome Requiem for Vengeance, which was clearly aimed at an international audience and failed.
So, while Sydney Sweeney could be an interesting choice for a live-action Gundam series, a movie just won’t have the runtime to make something like Gundam work on the big screen.
Obviously, I’d love it if this live-action movie turned out to be excellent, but considering the long-running history behind Gundam and just how complicated it is in terms of its story structure, I am not holding out hope that this will land as it should.
If you are at all curious about the history behind the Gundam franchise, then feel free to check out my interviews with writer and director Yoshiyuki Tomino, mecha designer Kunio Okawara, as well as character and art director Yoshikazu Yasuhiko.
Follow me on X, Facebook and YouTube. I also manage Mecha Damashii and am currently featured in the Giant Robots exhibition currently touring Japan.
