Mega Man is heading to the movies, if a new report from The Tracking Board is to be believed.
The site reports 20th Century Fox and Chernin Entertainment have started development on a feature film starring Capcom's iconic blue robot, Mega Man. David Ready and Michael Finfer oversee Chernin Entertainment, while founder Peter Chernin will be producing.
Together, the three men have a solid track record when it comes to nerdy sci-fi films, having worked on the recent Planet of the Apes reboot films. It's a category Mega Man definitely falls into. Chernin is also the founder of anime streaming service Crunchyroll, meaning he is no doubt familiar with Mega Man's Japanese origins and the various games, TV shows, comics and spin-offs that have been released since Mega Man's inception way back in 1987.
What exactly the film will be about is still a mystery, and it's not currently known if the movie will be live-action or animated. The safest bet is for it to be an origin story of sorts, telling the tale of how Mega Man's creator Dr. Light was betrayed by the nefarious Dr. Wily, who used Dr. Light's technology to create a legion of evil robot warriors. It is, of course, up to the arm-cannon-wielding Mega Man to defeat these various robots and restore order to the world.
One of the biggest aspects of classic Mega Man games is the blue bomber's ability to absorb the special abilities of the enemy robots he defeats. This grants him a number of unique powers — each of which must be used in combination with others in order to emerge victorious.
Mega Man will join a long list of video game characters who have either already appeared on the big screen or will be appearing soon. Capcom's long-running series definitely isn't the worst choice for a game franchise to adapt into film, but even Capcom hasn't seemed confident enough in the character's popularity to try releasing a new entry in the franchise in recent times. Mega Man's last new game was Mega Man 10 in 2010, though he did recently appear in the newest Super Smash Bros. game from Nintendo. Does that count? Capcom also released Mega Man Legacy Collection last month for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.
No word on when this Mega Man film may hit theaters. In the meantime, be sure to check out our list of game franchises we think would be perfect for the big screen.
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