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Astro Boy Director Replaced
Strange events in Astro Boy land today! It appears the current director has been fired and replaced! We get the scoop from our friends at first showing:
We’ve been covering Imagi Animation’s AstroBoy CGI flick for quite a while, posting the first official concept art photo and an interview with the director at the time, Colin Brady. The budding filmmaker has been a long-time visual effects artist and character developer for Imagi. However, in a very odd move, Imagi announced today that Flushed Away director David Bowers would be replacing Brady.
AstroBoy is the $50 million CGI project from Imagi Animation studios. The film is a revamp of the beloved Japanese manga series and has been described as an “epic sci-fi fantasy” movie with a “deep dark human struggle” that they’re going to explore.
I wonder what the hell happened to get Colin Brady canned. This was to be his directorial debut, I wonder if people started to panic at his lack of experience; or if the project was more than he could chew. At any rate, unless we hear further news from people involved in the situation - the best we can do is guess.
I never got into Astro Boy, but I know the character is beloved by many. I am all for stories about robots and will certainly be there to check the film out when it is done. Astro Boy always looks so friendly so it amuses me when they have him in stories that involve a “deep, dark human struggle”; it’s like seeing a clown at a funeral.
Astro Boy is scheduled for a 2009 release, so the change in directors should not have a drastic effect on the project. Any changes that need to be made are able to happen; time is on their side with this one. I am hard pressed to think of another director that has been removed from a project during production, if any of you can remember another time this has happened - please share.
Nagy, son of Nagy.
Brad Bird replaced Jan Pinkava on Ratatouille, Chris Williams took over Bolt aka American Dog from Chris Saunders, and Mark Dindal took over The Emperor’s New Groove aka Kingdom of the Sun when original director Roger Allers couldn’t bring it in on time, just to name a few.
I’ve got most of the Astro Boy manga. It’s crazy messed up.
Thank you for the examples Steven of the Red! I recall hearing you and kev dish about how crazy the stories are in the manga. I find that to be hilarious
Colin Brady’s directorial debut was actually the animated film Everyone’s Hero which no one went out to see, despite the fact that Christopher Reeve was attached as director before he passed away. According to IMDB, Colin is to direct the Smurfs movie so he might have pass up on Astroboy to focus his efforts on the Smurfs. I’m not going to loose any sleep over the departure of Colin but I’m also not exactly thrill with his replacement either when taking account of his previous work. Hopefully, David Bowers is able to retain the spirit of the original series. I don’t envision Astroboy as a light hearted comedy with plenty of slap stick humor so I like this direction of the “deep dark human struggle”. The earlier press release when Colin was still on board suggest that Astroboy will involve “alien race threatening Earth” but I guess that was scrapped (thank goodness) since Imagi’s Gatchaman will contain an alien invasion plot device too. Here is the plot outline in their latest press release:
Set in futuristic Metro City, Astro Boy is about a young robot with incredible powers created by a brilliant scientist in the image of the son he has lost. Unable to fulfill the grieving man’s expectations, our hero embarks on a journey in search of acceptance, experiencing betrayal and a netherworld of robot gladiators, before he returns to save Metro City and reconcile with the father who had rejected him.
This is much better than before. In the original series, Astroboy can shoot a cannon out of his ass. I wonder if Imagi will use that in the movie.
astro boy??? HAHAHAHHAHA
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAAA