Warner Bros. has hired a pair of scribes to take a whack at adapting the classic 1980s anime series Robotech for the big screen. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Alfred Gough and Miles Millar are penning a script for producers Akiva Goldsman and Chuck Roven. Tobey Maguire and Drew Crevello are also listed as producers. Harmony Gold’s Frank Agrama is exec producing along with Jason Netter.
Smallville showrunners Gough and Milar previously wrote The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor and Spider-Man 2. They were brought in to take another pass at Robotech after scripts were turned in by Lawrence Kasdan (Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Star Wars: Return of the Jedi) and Craig Zahler (The Brigands of Rattleborge).
The Robotech animated series is an intergalactic mecha drama that spans generations over the course of three acts: The Macross Saga, Robotech Masters and New Generation. The epic begins in the year 1999, when a massive alien battlecruiser crash-lands on Earth in the midst of a bloody global war. With the possibility of a more perilous threat looming, the human race puts aside its differences and collectively undertakes the arduous task of rebuilding the spacecraft and using its technology to build massive robots for the purpose of defending the Earth should its extraterrestrial masters come to reclaim it. When that day comes, the rebuilt ship’s inexperienced crew, led by hotshot pilot Rick Hunter and war hero Roy Fokker, launches the battlecruiser into war.
More than 20 years after Robotech want off the air, Harmony Gold picked up the story with a new animated feature film titled Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles. Navarre Corp.’s FUNimation Ent. acquired home video, broadcast and theatrical rights, giving it a very limited theatrical run in the U.S. last year. The award-winning pic is now available on DVD.
