NBC Universal (parent company of Universal Pictures) bought DreamWorks Animation for $3.8 billion this summer and Universal Pictures inherited their under development projects. One of them happened to be a live-action version of Voltron which was being secretly developed by them. Today we hear that the project is now progressing at Universal and the studio has tasked David Hayter (X-Men, Watchmen) to write the script.
According to a report from Deadline, Tom Engleman (The Chronicles of Riddick, The Lone Ranger) will produce the film. DreamWorks Animation is also working on the animated series Voltron: Legendary Defender which had its debut on Netflix in the summer. We don’t know if the live-action movie and the animated series will have any common link.
Several years back, Atlas Entertainment had been developing a live-action project titled Voltron: Defender of the Universe.The script was being written by Thomas Dean Donnelly and Joshua Oppenheimer (Conan the Barbarian), but, there was never a director attached to the project. Relativity Media took over the project in 2011, but, no progress was made.
Voltron originally debuted as a TV series in 1984 and it was based on the Japanese animes Beast King Go Lion and Kikou Kantai Dairugger XV. The show featured five lion robots pilots defending the galaxy and a planet Arus from the evil King Zarkon and Prince Lotor from Planet Doom. The series ran in the US for a couple of years and has been called to be an “international pop-culture hit”. It led to other shows such as the 1998 show Voltron: The Third Dimension, 2011 show Voltron Force and the Netflix show Voltron: Legendary Defender. The Voltron film’s plot is unknown presently.
David Hayter has written X-Men, X2, X-Men United, The Scorpion King, Watchmen and Wolves and he has also lent his voice to the classic video game character Solid Snake in the Metal Gear Solid Series. Recently, he voiced King Shark in The CW’s hit supehero series The Flash.
