Hollywood has tried — and failed — for decades to put together the gigantic robot mecha “Voltron” for a live-action remake of the iconic 1980s cartoon TV series.
Now, filmmaker Rawson Marshall Thurber of “Red Notice” intends to be the one to connect the mechanical lion’s limbs, legs, and head.
The director, who also helmed Dwayne Johnson in “Skyscraper” and “Central Intelligence,” has been hired to direct and co-write a “Voltron” picture, which is now receiving bids from numerous studios. With Bob Koplar of World Events Productions, the firm that owns the “Voltron” rights, Todd Lieberman and David Hoberman (“Beauty and the Beast”) are producing.
Thurber and Ellen Shanman are co-writing the script.
Despite the fact that the original “Voltron” only aired from 1984 to 1985, it attracted young viewers with its narrative of a group of five humans who battle bad forces in enormous robotic lions that join together to make them even larger eponymous robot warrior. World Events wrote fresh plots and language for the series, which was partially based on the Japanese sci-fi series “Beast King GoLion” (and subsequently on “Armored Fleet Dairugger XV,” which included 15 vehicles instead of five). The program was rebooted three times: in syndication in 1998, Nicktoons in 2011, and Netflix in 2016.
Several attempts to make live-action “Voltron” films in the 2000s and 2010s, including those by Pharrell Williams and Mark Gordon, as well as Relativity and Atlas Entertainment, all failed.
Thurber’s next project might not be this; he’s also planning back-to-back sequels to “Red Notice,” which, according to Netflix, is the streaming service’s most-watched original film ever.
The Hollywood Reporter broke the story first.
