Monday, August 18, 2008

Forbidden Kingdom's Relativity negotiates to produce on smaller budget

The Variety entertainment news source reports that New Regency, a production company based at Fox, no longer has plans for the live-action Voltron film project, while another company, Ryan Kavanaugh's Relativity Media, is negotiating to pick up the project. If Relativity Media signs onto the remake of the 1980s animated robot series, it will finance and produce the film with a lower budget and the use of technologies similar to those used in Zack Snyder's adaptation of Frank Miller's 300 comic. Relativity Media produced or co-produced over fifty projects in the last three years, including Ghost Rider, The Forbidden Kingdom, and Wanted.

Variety reported in April of 2007 that New Regency was negotiating for the rights to the project from the Mark Gordon Company, which is still involved with producers Mark Gordon and Jordan Wynn. The newspaper now reports that New Regency never completed the deal and could not reach an agreement with Voltron's Japanese rights holders. These talks began before the live-action Transformers film earned the fifth highest worldwide box office take of 2007, and before Warner Brothers began negotiating for the rights to another American adaptation of Japanese robots, Robotech.

If the Voltron project still goes forward, executive producer Bryan Zuriff and the other staffers will select a director by next week. Justin Marks (He-Man, Green Arrow) already wrote a script that resets the Lion Voltron story, which was based on the King of Beasts Golion anime, in post-apocalyptic New York City and Mexico after an alien invasion.

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