The Hollywood Reporter broke the news last night (amid all the JJ Abrams Star Wars foofaraw) that Warner Brothers has signed commercial director Nic Mathieu to the post of director for their long in development live-action conversion of Robotech.
Many names have been attached to the script, most excitingly Lawrence Kasdan, and Tobey Maguire is still set as a producer.
If this movie gets made, I’ll be able to die a happy man. Robotech is one of my favorite cartoon series’ from my childhood and it holds up in a way that people don’t seem to believe. It’s epic, it’s heartbreaking, it’s fantastic. And this could put Warner Brothers on the map with another massive geek franchise. It has the potential to beat the pants off of Transformers and be like a sci-fi Lord of the Rings for them.
From the Hollywood Reporter:
The project is a coup for Mathieu, a commercials director whose spots are known for their inventive CG effects but who has yet to make his feature debut.
But Warners already has shown it has plenty of faith in the burgeoning filmmaker: He is attached to direct The Wind, a David Keopp-written sci-fi project that the studio picked up in spring 2012 after being dazzled by his impressive presentation.
Mathieu also is attached to direct The Story of Your Life, an alien drama being produced by Shawn Levy’s 21 Laps.
There’s still no word on when the movie would happen, but it’s still exciting to hear and see it moving forward.