Netflix announces live-action Gundam movie from Kong: Skull Island director

Mobile Suit Gundam
(Image credit: Bandai/Sunrise)

Netflix is making a live-action Gundam movie with the director of Kong: Skull Island

Jordan Vogt-Roberts, who is also leading work on the upcoming Metal Gear Solid movie, is set to direct the production, which will be a live-action adaptation of the giant robot action franchise, with a screenplay from Saga and Y: The Last Man writer Brian K. Vaughan. The Gundam Netflix movie doesn't have a release date yet, and Netflix isn't revealing anything about plot details or the planned budget.

The biggest question is which part of Gundam this film will adapt. With more than forty years of history across TV shows, movies, books, and so many model kits, there's a lot of source material to choose from. Gundam also encompasses a multitude of distinct fictional universes, each of which explores its own geopolitical conflicts, from the continued evolution of humanity as it extends its reach beyond Earth's gravity to "what if we had a fighting tournament built on national stereotypes" and beyond. They've all got cool robots, though.

This will not be the first live-action Gundam film from a Western production team – that distinction goes to G-Saviour, a Canadian made-for-TV production which was produced to celebrate Gundam's 20th anniversary in 1999. G-Saviour was set in Gundam's original Universal Century, and there's a good chance the Gundam Netflix movie will too – but we won't know for sure until Netflix shares more details about the project.

Find something to watch while you wait for more Gundam movie news in our list of the best Netflix movies

Connor Sheridan

I got a BA in journalism from Central Michigan University - though the best education I received there was from CM Life, its student-run newspaper. Long before that, I started pursuing my degree in video games by bugging my older brother to let me play Zelda on the Super Nintendo. I've previously been a news intern for GameSpot, a news writer for CVG, and now I'm a staff writer here at GamesRadar.