"Knights of the Zodiac" Live-Action Feature Film

[Cremildo]

Originally Posted by By Liz Shackleton

Japan’s Toei Animation is teaming with Hong Kong-based A Really Good Film Company (ARGF) to produce an English-language, live-action film version of hot Toei anime property Saint Seiya: Knights Of The Zodiac.

Based on Masami Kurumada’s best-selling manga, Saint Seiya is one of the world’s biggest animated franchises, with total revenue of more than $1.1bn since 1986. Toei Animation has produced over 250 TV episodes and six features, which were released in over 80 countries. The original manga by Masami Kurumada has sold over 35 million copies.

ARGF has joined Toei Animation as its development and China co-production partner for the live-action version and will be handling Greater China distribution.

Yoshi Ikezawa and Joseph Chou of Toei Animation will serve as producers, along with ARGF founder Jeffrey Chan, who is also COO of Bona Film Group. Tim Kwok of Convergence Entertainment, Miguel Faura and Kozo Morishita of Toei Animation are executive producing with Kurumada.

The story of Saint Seiya follows a group of mystical warriors, the Saints, who are sworn protectors of the reincarnated Greek goddess Athena as she battles other Olympian gods to save mankind. Each of the Saints wears a powerful sacred armour based on their chosen zodiac constellation.

Kurumada said: “This is for our loyal fanbase who have supported Seiya for the last 30 years as well as the new generation of fans.

Toei Animation chairman Kozo Morishita said: “We are very excited to be partnering with ARGF to bring this title to a worldwide audience as a live-action feature film, which we hope to be the first of many more to come from Toei’s large IP stable.”

Chan said: “After almost two years of developing the project with my fellow producers, it still feels surreal to me to be able to work on such a fantastic animation franchise of which I’m a big fan myself.”

Source.

[Somnia]

This is pretty cool news!

I'm a fan of the anime series and will be interesting to see how they do this for live action.

[Cremildo]

I'm just having a hard time trying to understand why it's gonna be spoken in English, besides the fact that the United States are the world's largest movie market. Unless I'm misremembering, Saint Seiya - Knights of the Zodiac - was never a huge hit there.

[NARMAK]

I'm interested to see how they pull off the movie. Will it be Ghost in the Shell ot more like Dragonball Evolution lol

GITS gets a bad rap too but nobody can deny aesthetically it is a great looking movie.

[Somnia]

Originally Posted by Cremildo

Unless I'm misremembering, Saint Seiya - Knights of the Zodiac - was never a huge hit there.

I'm pretty sure you are right about the series not being that great of a hit here in the USA. I remember seeing a couple episodes on Cartoon Network when it was called Knights of the Zodiac and it was heavily edited...Maybe that's why it wasn't as popular in the USA because of the censoring???

It was definitely more popular in Mexico and the Latin American countries...Makes me wonder if it's because you fellows got to watch it uncut? Hmmm...

[Cremildo]

The director will be Oscar nominee Tomek Bagiński.

[Cremildo]

Mackenyu, Madison Iseman, Sean Bean, Famke Janssen to Star in Live-Action ‘Knights of the Zodiac’ Adaptation

[ps3bd_owner]

That cast looks a little too old to be Saint Seiya and ideally, it should be Japanese men (there's at least one) and women considering the show itself was.

Dragon Ball: Evolution should never be forgotten why it sucked. No, not just because they hired European actors/actresses, but also because it didn't follow DB's story, it was too Hollywood-fied and the music was pretty bland. I watched it once dubbed in Japanese and in that case, it wasn't too bad, eh.

[MazeRunner]

Love the cast.

[Himmel]

Golden Eye reunion!

[Mushi Minion]

Why stop there!? It's not like Pierce, Izabella, or Alan are that busy.

[Cremildo]

[Cremildo]

Knights of the Zodiac Live Action Movie (2023) Official Teaser - YouTube

[MazeRunner]

Not familiar with the source material but I'm excited.

[MazeRunner]

original thread