Variety reports that the fan-favorite anime series Cowboy Bebop is being adapted into a live-action television series. Tomorrow Studios (Aquarius, Good Behavior) is developing the live-action Cowboy Bebop series in a new partnership with ITV Studios.
Writer Chris Yost, whose feature credits include Thor: The Dark World and the upcoming Thor: Ragnarok, is set to pen the adaptation. Yost is no stranger to TV either, having worked on countless animated series, including Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Wolverine and the X-Men, Iron Man: Armored Adventures, and The Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes.
The series will be executive produced by Sunset Inc., Midnight Radio, Marty Adelstein, Becky Clements, and Matthew Weinberg.
Cowboy Bebop first premiered in 1998 and tells the story of The Bebop crew, intergalactic loners who team up to track down fugitives and turn them in for cold hard cash. Among the crew is Spike Spiegel, a hero whose cool façade hides a dark and deadly past; the pilot Jet, a bruiser of a brute who can’t wait to collect the next bounty; and Faye Valentine, a femme fatale prone to breaking hearts and separating fools from their money. Set against the backdrop of space in the year 2017, along for the ride are the brilliant, but weird, hacker Ed, and a super-genius Welsh Corgi named Ein.
The series ran for just 26 episodes and one special in the late 1990s and later had a feature film, Cowboy Bebop: The Movie, released in 2001 and set during the series instead of serving as a follow-up.
A live-action Cowboy Bebop feature film has lingered in development hell for many years with star Keanu Reeves previously attached to play the role of Spike.
