‘Gundam’ Live-Action Film From Jordan Vogt-Roberts in the Works at Netflix

Netflix is bringing the Gundam franchise to the small screen. Polygon reports that Kong: Skull Island director Jordan Vogt-Roberts and comic book writer Brian K. Vaughan are teaming up for a live-action film based on the franchise, which currently has the working title Gundam, according to IGN.

The upcoming film comes decades after the Gundam franchise first began in 1979, with the release of Mobile Suit Gundam. In the years since, the military science fiction series has gone on to release multiple sequels and spin-offs, and has even branched out into toys and model kits.

While Netflix is keeping pretty quiet about the Gundam film and any possible plot details, but the the original series in the franchise could give us some clues. It’s set in a distant future where the Universal Century sees human colonies duking it out in space for independence from Earth. To fight, humans use robots, or Mobile Suits, while in conflict. Per Polygon, the Gundam franchise is “credited with maturing the giant robot anime genre, and for telling a wide array of human stories of love, war, and military sci-fi drama over four decades.”

While Gundam will premiere exclusively on Netflix, the film will hit theaters in China, where it will be released by Legendary. Gundam marks a big anime release for the streamer, which has been slowly growing its own anime collection over the past few years.

Vogt-Roberts shared the news of his upcoming Netflix project on Twitter yesterday, writing, “A tweet cannot begin to express how excited I am by this!” with a link to the IGN story about Gundam. Aside from his highly anticipated Gundam film, Vogt-Roberts has also worked on shows like Single Dads, Mash Up, Book Club and You’re The Worst. His films include The Kings of Summer and the upcoming Metal Gear Solid.