Cowboy Bebop is one of the greatest anime series of all time. When it premiered in 1998, it gained an instant following of rabid fans. That popularity exploded when the English language version aired on Adult Swim in 2001. Throughout the ’00s, the fervor around Cowboy Bebop increased to such a level that Hollywood itself began eyeing the property.
And thus began the ill-fated journey of a live-action Cowboy Bebop adaptation.
The First Rumblings
In 2008, it was reported that 20th Century Fox had made a deal to bring Cowboy Bebop to the big screen in a prestige blockbuster format. Fans were initially skeptical since Hollywood’s track record with adapting anime was iffy, to say the least. At that time, the only notable anime series that had gotten US adaptations were Fist of the North Star and The Guyver. While they gained small cult followings, they were not the kind of wide-reaching hits that Hollywood seeks to make.
But, fans became more at ease when it was announced that Sunrise Animation, the company that produced the original anime, would be closely involved in the production of the film. This included series director Shinichiro Watanabe and series writer Keiko Nobumoto as associate producers, as well as series producer Masahiko Minami as a production consultant. It looked like the studio definitely wanted to keep the original creators involved in the project.
It was also encouraging to hear that Keanu Reeves was attached to star as Spike Spiegel, the lead bounty hunter of the series. Reeves was still riding the success of The Matrix and its sequels. He’d also recently starred in the indie sci-fi drama A Scanner Darkly which showed his commitment to taking the genre seriously. Things were looking as good as they could for the project at this point.
Then, the script came in.
The Adaptation
Screenwriter Peter Craig was tapped to do the first draft of the story. At that point, Craig didn’t have a screenplay credit under his belt but he was an accomplished novelist. He would go on to write The Town and both The Hunger Games: Mockingjay films, but he was something of an untested property in Hollywood back in 2008. The script that has made the rounds in Hollywood is attributed to him but it’s unclear if it underwent rewrites from other uncredited writers.
There is a lot in the script that sounds promising. The Bebop and its crew — minus Ed, an omission that fans surely would have taken issue with — are all faithful translations of their anime counterparts. Though the script doesn’t have enough time to really dive into each of their backstories, it does touch on them enough to let us know that these are the same characters we’re familiar with from the series. And the world that Spike and his friends inhabit feels like a good adaptation of the sci-fi world that the series perfected.
Craig even expands on some elements of the series that were left more ambiguous and metaphorical. For example, in the series, Spike has an artificial eye that he obtains after faking his own death. Spike says, “One of [my eyes] is a fake because I lost it in an accident. Since then, I’ve been seeing the past in one eye and the present in the other.” Fans have debated the meaning of this ever since the series concluded. In Craig’s draft, he makes it very apparent that one of Spike’s eyes is mechanical. It pulses and continuously shows Spike his memories, causing him to constantly see both the past and the present. It’s a cool idea that helps clarify some of the vaguer elements of the show.
But, then there’s the actual plot.
The Story
In the film script, the driving plot is an adaptation of the show’s main story arc between Spike and his former friend Vicious. However, it is a very liberal lifting of the story from the series. In the film, Vicious breaks out of prison and kills all of the inmates. His goal is to control all of the oil in the solar system because … well, he’s just kind of a power-mad guy in this version. There is no mention of Julia, his former girlfriend and Spike’s lover. The rivalry between Spike and Vicious is kept solely between them.
Vicious wants Spike dead since Spike is the successor to the Red Dragon Syndicate, the criminal cabal that controls most of the solar system. In order to accomplish this, Vicious hacks into the bounty hunter computer system and puts a $400 million bounty on Spike’s head. This causes every bounty hunter out there to try and hunt down Spike throughout the course of the movie. It even causes some temporary friction between Spike and his friends since they even consider turning him in for the money.
Exactly why Spike has the bounty on his head is presented as a mystery in the script, and the movie plays out as Spike avoids bounty hunters and tries to unravel who it is that’s trying to have him killed. This is how we’re introduced to Spike’s backstory with Vicious. The overarching theme of the story boils down to trust and how Spike’s past is highlighted by his betrayal of Vicious.
Needless to say, this is very different from the way the story plays out in the series and it’s likely that fans would not have been happy with such a decision. Although the idea of placing a huge bounty on Spike’s head is a great idea for a story — it definitely echoes Keanu Reeves’s later film John Wick: Chapter 2 — the rest of the surrounding plot feels very stripped down in order to appeal to a broader audience.
Unfortunately, we never got to find out if that would have worked or not.
The Breakdown
Craig’s version was submitted for rewrites in an effort to bring down the production budget. It’s understandable since Craig doesn’t skimp on the space-faring adventure and big action. But, this would end up being the death knell for the project. Rumors would pop up about some version of the movie over the next few years, but this iteration would end up stuck in development hell.
Since then, a live-action television series was announced back in 2017. If this comes to pass, it means that a live-action film is probably dead in the water. It doesn’t help that films like Death Note and Ghost in the Shell haven’t given anime adaptations a better reputation. Maybe we’ll see some new version of Cowboy Bebop in the coming years, but until then, it’s fun to dream about what that could look like.
Or you could just watch the anime again. Because it’s awesome.
