Deadline reports that Universal Pictures is developing a live-action version of the hit animated series Voltron for the big screen and they’ve hired Watchmen screenwriter David Hayer to script the project. Tom Engelman of The Chronicles of Riddick and The Lone Ranger will produce.
The original Voltron series, based on the Japanese anime properties Beast King GoLion and Kikou Kantai Dairugger XV, aired in the United States from 1984 – 1985 and became a pop culture phenomena in its own right. It tells the story of five young pilots that control giant Lion robots that form into the titular warrior and do battle across the planet Arus.
A TV special, Voltron: Fleet of Doom, was released in 1986 with a computer animated series, Voltron: The Third Dimension, following in 1998.”The Third Dimension” was short-lived, lasting just 26 episodes. Another attempt at rebooting the series came with 2011’s Voltron Force on Nickelodeon, which also lasted just 26 episodes. Currently, Voltron Legendary Defender is available on Netflix with a second season set to premiere January 20, 2017.
A live-action Voltron was previously in development in 2005 with producer Mark Gordon attached and a script by Justin Marks (The Jungle Book). Over the years of its development producers and writers would enter and depart with Relativity Media finally announcing in 2011 they would bring it to the big screen. It never materialized.
We would also be remiss if we didn’t remind everyone of the rumors that the original teaser trailer for 2008’s Cloverfield was actually for a live-action Voltron movie, though it proved just to be outlandish wishful thinking.
