Forum - View topicNEWS: The Hollywood Reporter: Hollywood Studios Shop for Live-Action Voltron Project
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GATSU
Posts: 15296 |
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No poiint, if the Power Rangers movie disappointed.
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Beatdigga
 Posts: 4366 Location: New York |
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That film series is getting rebooted by Hasbro and Netflix, which I believe between that, the Mobile Suit Gundam movie Netflix also has the rights to, and the exceptionally poor performance of Legendary Defender in terms of casual viewership, merchandise sales, and just really, really bad PR is why Netflix is specifically listed as not being one of the studios bidding on the project. Speaking of, I really wish I could see what the pitch reel for the series was. It's already all but stated that the film is going to be based on the 80s incarnation of the characters and given the less than charitable things that World Events Productions and a producer on the film, Bob Koplar, have said about their last go around on the property (namely that the people they were working with at Universal/Dreamworks, and I quote from VoltCon 2020 "didn't get Voltron"), I imagine that any pitch that convinced Koplar that this was worth bringing to Hollywood studios for attention is probably as far away tonally and aesthetically removed from Legendary Defender as one can get. Way more robot punching, a blonde space princess, and no Shiro character. Also, the director of the film, Rawson Marshall Thurber, is a frequent collaborator of Dwanye "The Rock" Johnson. I can see The Rock being tapped for a supporting role in the film, like Commander Hawkins. |
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MFrontier
Posts: 11138 |
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Wonder how much they'd base it off Legendary Defender.
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Beatdigga
Posts: 4366 Location: New York |
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Legally, nothing. Bob Koplar went over this at Voltcon 2020 and what he said boiled down to that while WEP TV (his company) owns the Voltron license, Dreamworks owns the original concepts made for Legendary Defender. The problem is that Dreamworks let that license expire when they failed to exercise their movie option so they no longer have the rights to make Voltron anything, nor does WEP have the rights to use the concepts made for Legendary Defender. There’s also the implications from that convention that Koplar hated VLD and considered it a financial failure, so given all that, it will probably be based on the 80s show with new ideas designed to generate distance from Legendary Defender. |
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09jcg
Posts: 523 |
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I wonder why Hollywood goes after anime projects that will be hard to make, when you have Properties like Black Lagoon which would be perfect for a Holllywood film
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FunkyDude88
 Posts: 108 |
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Power Rangers success as a show stemmed from it being pure distilled 90s aesthetics covered in cheese. The movie failed because they did the typical Hollywood thing of trying to take itself too seriously and make it gritty and modern and antithetical to what the series stood for originally. Voltron's success never hinged on anything like that and was more traditional. This has a better chance than Power Rangers ever did, even if I don't think it'll be good. |
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BadNewsBlues
Posts: 5914 |
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Was it truly only that reason and not the fact that unlike the 90’s movies the reboot wasn’t riding a wave of popularity? I mean let’s not forget the Power Rangers Turbo movie had all those aesthetics the reboot lacked and it underperformed compared to the first movie. |
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Silver Kirin
Posts: 1117 |
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I think the biggest issue with the Power Rangers movie was the serious tone and the designs for the suits and Zords which, not to mention that the marketing wasn't very good either, though the toys sold well from what I heard. I know some people dislike the tone of the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies, saying they're too lighthearted and have many jokes but I think a Voltron or Power Rangers movie should aim for that kind of style. The Gundam live-action project is more suited for a dark and serious tone in my opinion. |
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TranceLimit174
 Posts: 958 |
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There is a whole laundry list of reasons behind why the Power Rangers movie failed and honestly, that's a separate topic.
Bottom line, if Voltron is to succeed in live action then it can't be ashamed of what it is IE don't form Voltron and then have 90% of the footage be cutaways to the pilots in cockpits. Also, Voltron needs to look like a damn lion robot and not techno-organic vomit. |
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TexZero
Posts: 583 |
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Because it's easier for them to bank on name recognition in a wider audience than a niche audience. No matter how much that may hurt to read, Black Lagoon's global appeal is but a tiny (red) fraction of the stuff like Gundam, Power Rangers, Voltron etc... |
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Vladimir Morales
Posts: 190 |
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Really? Voltron? Do people still care about Voltron? Legendary Defender had a toxic fanbase that would make fans of Steven Universe blush in embarrassment.
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Beatdigga
Posts: 4366 Location: New York |
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The 80s series, for whatever it's worth, still has value, primarily because no one has been able to remake it properly. The franchise was getting referenced as recently as Spider-Man Far From Home, and it's a franchise that for better or for worse, is still viewed through that 80s lens because the remakes have all fallen flat on their face. The VLD fanbase was toxic and embarrassing, but they were also small and not big money movers. The studio bidding war seems to be indicating that whatever film does come out of this, it will take pains to let VLD fans know the film is not for them. It will be very male-centric, the casting will likely reflect the 80s show (not just out of wanting to attract that male demo, but also because they legally can't use VLD concepts) and in general, the idea will be "Hey, remember this thing from the 80s! It's back with a huge budget! It has never been back before, but here it is now!" |
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TheBeastAR
Posts: 27 |
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On the subject of Power Rangers, Taking itself too seriously and citing that as a problem is a bit of a weird one for me.
While I'm happy to acknowledge the light hearted and wackier antics in tokusatsu, it's also true that several iterations of Power Rangers, Sentai and Kamen Rider have adopted a more serious tone and more dramatic elements. And those ended up being some of the more interesting and strongest iterations of the brand. Speaking of the 2017 film specifically, it was certainly more serious the original 1993 series for sure, but not that serious in tone to be perfectly honest. The tone wasn't the problem. If anything I partly attribute its failure to the perception of the franchise and Japanese superhero stories in general. The film was never going to be taken 'seriously' by the general public. The idea that Japanese superhero stories can be more dramatic and more character driven isn't something a lot of people will entertain. |
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BadNewsBlues
Posts: 5914 |
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The American comic books has been running with a serious tone and it’s gotten by fine. Also wasn’t there like a fan trailer or whatever that had a darker and more serious tone.
I might be wrong but wasn’t Voltron and the original Go Lion dark at times the latter being more so. |
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AmpersandsUnited
Posts: 633 |
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Even without the issues of legality I would expect they'll stick close to the OG Voltron for the sake of nostalgia and marketing. The same question popped up with the She-Ra live-action and people wondering how much it would borrow from Princesses of Power. Of course the fanbases for those two reboots might be really upset by that fact but that's just the nature of reboots in general. These projects usually target Boomer fans of the original property, not the newer Zoomer iterations.
Even at it's darkest tokusatsu still it what it is. I love the more serious takes myself, and find myself considering the least popular series like LuPat my favorite, but the way Power Rangers 2017 took itself seriously was the same way that superhero movies out of DC and Marvel do it. Dark colors, muted costume design, absolute fear of anything that could make them seem juvenile like spandex, practical rubber suit effects. Refusal to let heroes keep their masks on and identities hidden for long periods of time because they paid way too much money for these actors to give them full helmets and cover their faces for most of the movie. And yeah, the Michael Bay Transformers technoorganic design is horrid. They refused to accept people piloting giant dinosaur robots was a fun, silly concept and had to try to explain it through technoorganic nanobite science. I mean, Goldar couldn't be just a beast warrior in golden armor, he had to be a literal blob monster made out of gold. Because his name is Goldar. Get it? Why else would he be named Goldar if he wasn't Gold? Throw in a few obligatory cracks and demeaning remarks about the source material like Wandavision making fun of the comic book costume for Scarlet Witch and it's the typical Hollywood blend of giving off that aura that it's way too pretentious for what it is. It remains to be seen if Voltron can avoid these typical pitfalls of companies trying to chase the MCU dollar. |
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