Lego Movie studio sets their sights on Astro Boy

The studio behind Lego Movie and Avengers: Age of Ultron, Animal Logic Entertainment, has set their sights on a live-action adaptation of beloved Japanese character, Astro Boy. Though no director or actors have been attached, producers Zareh Nalbandian and Jason Lust are on the hunt for writers, says The Hollywood Reporter.

While Astro Boy is definitely a children’s character, the studio is looking to make something to appeal to today’s audiences who pack the theaters for superhero films. Nalbandian told THR that “we’ve seen him as a manga, an anime and an animated movie but we’ve never seen him as a live-action movie or him as a superhero. We actually see him in the same league as an Iron Man.”

The  Astro Boy character has been around since the early 1950s, when he was created by Osamu Tezuka, and has enjoyed decades of comic strips, manga, and anime. During this time, the character has built a huge cast of both villains and supporting characters for Animal Logic to play with.

Though we had an Astro Boy movie in 2009, the film bombed in the box office, making back barely half of its budget. Audiences are more accepting of superhero movies now, as Marvel’s success, most notably in this case Big Hero 6, can attest. Still, Animal Logic could be fighting an uphill battle with this, though it sounds like they’re taking a different route than the earlier box office bomb.