Robotech.com announces that Sony Pictures purchased the rights to the Robotech Macross series adaptation for the movies. This means that the dreaded Harmony Gold is out of the way for other more established companies to create new material for the Robotech universe. Although executives and managers at Harmony continue to claim that Robotech and Macross are different entities, they're just splitting hairs because in the end, they just simply own the trademark for Macross with no actual creation of the SDF Macross series themselves.
It's like saying that Walt Disney created Marvel Comics, although they own the rights to them, they obviously had nothing to do with the creation of good old Spidy. In fact, the credit should always go to Stan Lee, the founding father of Spiderman and almost every Marvel character.
As for Macross? It's Shoji Kawamori. Now the rumors surfaced on Variety Magazine. And according to Robotech.com, Sony Pictures will go with an American director, not Big West nor Tatsunoko Pro. The companies that created Macross.
If the executives at Sony are sharp, they'll own the rights and go completely separately from what Harmony attempted to do, to create their own alternate narrative of Macross to adapt to the American audience. Instead, they'll completely dismiss the idea of the two other Japanese cartoon series to solely focus on SDF Macross.
In my life time, I actually got to sit down and listen to Carl Macek speak about the Robotech series. He had a vision but also admitted that the two other cartoons, Genesis Climber Mospeada and Super Dimension Southern Cross were used because they needed more episodes to qualify as a daily TV program. SDF Macross was originally a weekly program in Japan.
This meant that Macek could conjure up anything to bind the three cartoons together. Sadly, although the mecha may have been similar in genre, the story lines were completely different. To face this challenge, they created three generations of Robotech and tried to intertwine them with character flashbacks and adaptations of older versions of the original characters.
The truth is that this stitching job is what Harmony Gold decided to hold onto as their own version of the franchise. Trying to separate their own version from the original SDF Macross they owned the rights to.
Sony is a huge company. And although they had issues with the recent flop, The Interview, and the North Korean hacking attack, Sony is still a Japanese company. This means that they cannot deny the facts that Shoji Kawamori is the founder of the franchise.
And in similar fashion, Sony was tired of the blockade of rights holders of Spiderman around the globe and decided to purchase every right in every nation to consolidate their hold on Spiderman as it was time to create and release their own Sony Pictures production of the Spiderman franchise.
And unlike Harmony Gold, Sony didn't just attempt to hold the copyrights to Spiderman against other franchises, they've decided to share the wealth. While Sony now owns rights to the Robotech movie franchise, they also are in talks with Marvel Comics to create a new Spiderman and Avengers crossover. A co-production between Marvel Disney and Sony is unheard of and the budget could double for a huge motion picture of a possible new franchise. If Fox Entertainment is smart they'll incorporate their X-Men series into the Avengers hold.
You see, this isn't about blocking other creations of the same series. This is about the fans. Making sure that rights and legalities don't get in the way of a possible new franchise. To me, Robotech has the best chance of any Anime to surpass Hunger Games, Divergent, Twilight, and even Fast n Furious because it has so much of a huge following overseas.
If anything, Sony Pictures could easily ask Big West to enter the fold as a possible creative lead. If anything have Shoji Kawamori himself be the director of the full franchise.
The ideas are endless, but there is a huge iPhone generation who has never seen Robotech on TV. For this reason, SDF Macross must appeal to the non-fans. They may have to incorporate basics back into the movie and perhaps keep this a possible trilogy all the way towards the end.
The cast must consist of Japanese. Without it, the movie would simply be a waste. The stars have to be Japanese singers like the original cast. And perhaps the obvious American casts would include characters for Rory Focker and Claudia. However, Misa Hayase and Lynn Minmay must be Japanese and Chinese.
The main character Max and Hikaru should be Japanese as well. Captain Gloval in the series was supposedly Russian, but for this movie, I do believe it can be Japanese.
The possible candidates for acting are stars like Ken Watanabe. Maybe George Takei. Why not include Brad Pitt? Tyra Banks? Japanese stars Takako Uehara, Takeshi Kaneshiro, and even Hikaru Utada could be possible cast members.
Star Trek actors like John Cho and John Billingsley could be other actors. In essence, there really is no need to hold back on creativity for this series. There have and always will be great actors globally for the role.
The question is will Sony go Americanized? Or will they stick to the Japanese franchise that the fans adore?
