Not every movie is from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, capable of riding the momentum of hype and a strong fan base to the theaters. For something a little less proven, the path sometimes skirts the cliff of production hell, the place where countless scripts, pitches, and half-finished films go to die. The live-action Mega Man movie spent the last five years teetering on that precipice, a killer concept with enough juice to keep it one step away from death’s doorstep.
The movie first surfaced in 2015 with scant details, just names with well known movies to their credit. Mega Man was supposed to be produced by Chernin Entertainment with David Ready and Michael Finfer overseeing it for the company and Peter Chernin producing. The trio was responsible for the recent movie reboot of Planet of The Apes. Then the movie finally found itself a director and writer in 2018 when Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman came on board. They worked together on three different Paranormal Activities movies when they agreed to work on Mega Man and the choice looks better considering their most recent project.
The pair teamed up to write and direct Project Power, which is now on Netflix. During production, Joost and Schulman also found some chemistry with writer Mattson Tomlin who brought the gritty aesthetics of movies like 8 Mile and Collateral to the Project Power. Their collaboration with Tomlin eventually led to the announcement that he would be teaming up with Joost and Schulman as a writer for the movie. The trio being on board brings the promise of experience and proof that they can actually finish a project together, which is a favorable sign considering how long it took for the director to even be named.
For those not familiar with the Mega Man game franchise, he’s the main character of a long-running series of video games created by Capcom. Originally called Rockman in Japan, it follows the story of a robot named Rock who served as a lab assistant for two prolific scientists in robotics, Dr. Light and Dr. Wily. When the latter turned evil and began to turn other robots designed by Dr. Light to his cause, Rock chose to have a blaster attached to his arm and became Mega Man in order to defend the world from Wily’s set of Robot Masters. Other characters also joined the fray to help Mega Man, like the robot dog Rush who could turn into everything from a jet-powered skateboard to a submarine. Mega Man’s sister Roll also helped out from time to time and the mysterious robot with a yellow scarf named Proto Man also stood in his way. The first game released in 1987 and 10 more came after it in the main timeline with Mega Man 11 releasing in 2018. Outside of video games, Mega Man appeared in comic books, television and even light novels so it’s not that far of a leap to to see him in a film adaptation.
After the release of Project Power, Tomlin spoke about his involvement on the Mega Man movie with Polygon Editor Matt Patches. During the interview, Tomlin gave a few extra details about his approach to the live-action adaptation. He said that he came on board to work on Mega Man because he enjoyed working with both Joost and Schulman and that he wanted to push beyond the iconic visuals to tell a compelling story. “It’ll be universal and primal and emotional and everybody can kind of relate to. So I’m really excited about that script. I’m really excited about what the guys are going to do with that movie and and hopefully there’ll be some news about it soon.”
Joost and Schulman also hinted at big news to come during Comic-Con’s at home series of virtual panels. They teased a “big update” about Mega Man during an interview with IGN’s Terri Schwartz. The panel itself was about Project Power, but when Schwartz took a brief moment to ask about Mega Man, Joost responded there would be some “big news” about it coming soon.
At this point, live action Mega Man is on the verge of getting made. The producer, writers and directors are there, finally and the latter both made promises of “big news coming.” Sure, some plot details would be nice or maybe a hint of who the cast might be, but after five years of being a a pipe dream, “it’s not cancelled” is good enough.
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