March 26, 2015

Sony Takes Over "Robotech" Live Action Movie - What Happened to Tobey Maguire?

Brent Lang from Variety reports that Sony Pictures has now taken over the Robotech Live Action movie. After 8 years of waiting for this movie to get made I've developed a healthy attitude toward news like this, best characterized as cautious optimism. Best of luck to the producers Gianni Nunnari and Mark Canton ("300," "The Immortals") and screen writer Michael Gordon ("300," "GI Joe").

I wonder now what happened to the prior Robotech champions (Tobey Maguire, Jason Netter, Akiva Goldsman, Warner Brothers...). Tobey thank you for getting the Robotech movie off the ground. If it weren't for you I never would have made my own Robotech live action short film. You started it all, and it's still going. Let's hope Sony does it the right way, whatever that may be. We will know it when we see it!

1 comment:

  1. Here is what happened.

    Warner Bros. had the rights for a number of years. Eventually, if a studio licenses the film rights for a property or options those rights, they have a certain amount of time to make that property into a film. If they don't, the original rights holder can take back the film rights and shop them elsewhere.

    So Warner Bros. spun their wheels on this and they never got a film off the ground. 8 years later, Harmony Gold decides they are taking the film rights back and Sony Pictures shows some interest and buys them.

    This really means nothing. It means they are willing to spend money on developing a property.

    But here is what fans and people in general do not understand when they read these stories of a movie deal. Licensing or acquiring the film rights is not the same thing as a green light or going into production. They still have to come up with a script or pitch the studio is happy with then they will say, "OK we like this. We will give this a green light, here is $200 million, go make the movie."

    Robotech was never able to get that at Warner Bros. There is no guarantee it will ever happen at Sony either.

    There are many steps and obstacles in front of these properties getting made between getting their rights optioned out to movie studios.