Fox Has The ‘Nerve’ To Hire Directors For Live-Action ‘Mega Man’
For the past 30 years, Mega Man has been a staple of the video game community. In all that time, he’s only had a handful of appearances outside of a gaming console. Since the early ’90s, most fans of the Blue Bomber have had only his short-lived (and very bad) animated show and co-starring gig on the Captain N animated series (also very bad) to “enjoy.” In 2015 however, news of a live-action film starring Capcom’s resident robot hero got our hopes up. Barely anything has been heard about that feature since, but today it appears Mega Man may have found its directors.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Catfish and Nerve directors Ariel Schulman and Henry Joost are in negotiations to write and helm 20th Century Fox’s Mega Man. Produced by Fox, Chernin Entertainment and Heroes alum Masi Oka, Mega Man will be the first attempt to bring Capcom’s iconic platform hero to the big screen. This shouldn’t be confused with Cartoon Network’s upcoming Mega Man animated series, which is due to arrive in 2018, but certainly adds to the strange amount of sudden media interest Mega Man has drawn in recent years.
The original Mega Man video game featured the robotic boy hero, Rock, attempting to thwart the machinations of the evil Dr. Wily, who had co-opted a handful of robots to take over the world. In addition to being a challenging platform game, Mega Man’s key feature was the ability to steal the powers of his enemies in order to more easily challenge Wily’s other Robot Masters. That should make for some interesting cinematic elements, and could look rather impressive in action with the right effects team.
Though it’s obviously too early to know exactly what this upcoming Mega Man feature film will be about, the character’s video games leave plenty of room for interpretation in crafting a compelling action film. Though his history has been recorded by Archie Comics in a Capcom-approved way in the past, the movie would likely eschew all the complicated connections established to forge its own path.
Mega Man has been in development for a few years already, and is likely still a few years away from becoming a reality. At least we’ll have the animated series to hold us over until it arrives sometime in 2018.