Friday, September 7, 2007

Let the Hype Begin: Robotech Live Action

The new fad has began, it's the fad of big Robots on the big screen. The success of Transformers has made a many interested in cashing in on a fad yet to be born. Rumor has it that Warner Bros. Pictures has licensed Robotech to create a full live action movie out of it. WB has chosen Maguire Entertainment led by Tobey Maguire to produce it for them. "We are very excited to bring 'Robotech' to the big screen," Maguire said. "There is a rich mythology that will be a great foundation for a sophisticated, smart and entertaining film." Drew Crevello from Supercool Hollywood BigTime Prods. is also producing. Craig Zahler will be writing the screenplay.

"Frank Agrama of rights-holder Harmony Gold will exec produce; Jason Netter will serve in a producer capacity. Matthew Reilly brought the project to Warners and is overseeing. Daniel Shafer brought the project to Maguire and will shepherd for the company."

What can a serious fan make of all this madness? Oh it won't be pretty. Robotech.com has already treated it like a silly joke through their news post: "OMG ROBOTECH LIVE ACTION MOVIE!!! Nawww..... could this grapevipe from The Hollywood Reporter and MovieWeb even be true?"

On a more serious note, it appears that this agreement to make a live action movie is extremely fresh and brand new. This means almost no time has gone into the production process or pre-production. A lot of problems will come and it'll take a couple of years to produce the movie. However, its extremely unlikely that the Robotech live action will see the light of day. Companies are known for buying license rights to cartoons, games, and merchandise without ever getting far. This is not Transformers whom had such huge super success with the Transformers cartoons and toys for over 20 years. Robotech does not have this kind of backing. Look at this quote: "Last month, Regency picked up 1980s Japanese anime series "Voltron"" See what I mean? Welcome to the fad of robot movies only created based solely on how well the Transformers live action movie did

The whole point of the articles is to create hype, a lot of hype to drive the production. You could believe that some changes made over at Robotech.com were done to pervent people like me shooting down everyone's hype. Harmony Gold has shown commitment to the Robotech brand and wants their core creations to be released. Shadow Chronicles was completely based on Harmony Gold keeping full control to allow the creativity freedom that Robotech should have. This won't be the case with this live action production. It's possible and likely that HG is treating the live action movie like their other third-party merchandise in where it doesn't really matter what happens to it. It's just more support for their core projects: Robotech Anime.

Hype is important from a marketing point of view, but all I say is that as loyal fans, don't be disappointed if the movie sucks or never comes out.

Long Live Robotech the cartoon.

News Articles:
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3i1f2de64a1d24bd5585bf89b0691d2011
http://www.movieweb.com/news/67/22567.php

Leave positive hype here: http://www.robotech.com/community/forum/read.php?id=1774514&forumid=31 As Harmony Gold would say, its important to make companies think their Robotech brand is fully supported by fans with no complaints and problems. Too bad we hardcore people aren't always happy. We're die-hard fans afterall.

7 comments:

Juan said...

yeah that's your job...

that's why most fans are happy... and you are not.

The Masters said...

lol, wanna go more in-depth on that? I'm not happy because I don't honestly believe it will be much. It's way way too soon to get people's hopes up. When we're two years down the road and the movie goes into production and post-production, then we can start on buttering ourselves up.

Roger said...

Too bad we hardcore people aren't always happy.

If being hardcore means that you're not as happy as you could be, perhaps being hardcore isn't all it's cracked up to be.

After all, life's too short to be unhappy.

The Masters said...

lol, I guess i didn't phrase that all that well. What I meant is that it's hard to please the hardcore fandom because we expect too much. We're too knowledgable to begin with about our favorite subject to allow sale pitches and marketing tricks to sell us over.

My only real concern is all these people just flat out buying into the live action movie. Maybe people have forgotten how many times we are promised things that aren't granted. It's way too early to know where this will go.

Anonymous said...

Long Live Robotech the cartoon.
People who whore themselves out to anything with the "Robotech" name on it?
I don't know what's wrong with you.

Chris Meadows said...

Long live Robotech.

Period.

Anonymous said...

It's not how long one lives, but how one lives. Some people would agree; others don't care, happy to live in disinterest with quality.

Funny times we live-in.