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Hong Kong-based animation studio to turn 1970's anime, later called Battle of the Planets, into a feature film.
(Source:Comics 2 Film) Hong Kong-based Imagi Studios announced that they will bring one of Japan's earliest anime series to the big screen. Gatchaman, which North American audiences know as Battle of the Planets or G-Force, followed a team of five super-heroes as they battled to save Earth from the evil Gallactor. Imagi signed an option agreement with Tatsunoko Productions (which owns Gatchaman) to produce a CG animated feature based on the anime, tentatively slated for a 2008 release. Kevin Munroe will script and direct the movie, once he's done fulfilling those same roles for the Imagi/Warner Bros. production of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. That film opens March 30, 2007. Gatchaman debuted in Japan on October 1, 1972, and ranks as Tatsunoko's most successful superhero show. The series was unusual for the time for its unflinching look at grief and realism, even going so far as to kill off one of the main characters, Condor Joe. In 1978, Sandy Frank Syndication revamped the show for North American audiences, and retitled it Battle of the Planets. Frank edited the violence and frightening images, and a created a controversial character named 7-Zark-7 to fill the gaping plot holes caused by the aforementioned editing. That version ran until the early 1980's. In 1987, Turner Broadcasting revamped the series again(!) and called it G-Force: Guardians of Space. Fans of the series panned this version, calling it lackluster and boring, but it still runs on Turner Cartoon. The sequels have been repackaged as Saban's Eagle Riders. Production of the Gatchaman movie is expected to begin next year.
The copyright of the article Imagi revives Gatchaman in Animated Films is owned by Dominic von Riedemann. Permission to republish Imagi revives Gatchaman in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
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