It’s been ages since talk began of a live-action Cowboy Bebop feature adaptation, and just a few years and change as those efforts evolved into TV with Netflix acquiring the rights last November. Now we have a quartet of casting announcements from Variety with John Cho (Star Trek reboot trilogy) leading the way as Spike Spiegel.
The actor will be joined by Mustafa Shakir (Brawl In Cell Block 99, Luke Cage: Season Two) for the role of Jet Black along with Daniella Pineda (Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom) as Faye Valentine, and Alex Hassell (The Bisexual, upcoming Amazon series The Boys) in the role of Spike Spiegel’s archnemesis and the Syndicate’s most formidable hitman, Vicious.
Based on Cain Kuga’s Kadokawa Shoten manga and Shinichiro Watanabe hit anime series from Sunrise Inc., Cowboy Bebop is the jazz-inspired, genre-bending action sci-fi tale of Spike Spiegel, Jet Black, Faye Valentine and Radical Ed: a rag-tag crew of bounty hunters on the run from their pasts as they hunt down the solar system’s most dangerous criminals. They’ll even save the world…for the right price.
There’s no word yet on who will portray the rambunctious Radical Ed along with other cast additions.
The role will mark another stint in action for Cho who recently starred in missing persons social media thriller, Searching. Cho threw down a bit in J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek after years of honing in his comedy skills as a side character of the American Pie franchise and with Kal Penn on the Harold And Kumar movies. Spiegel is described as a Jeet Kune Do expert along with using his charm and charisma to catch bounties.
Watanabe himself is serving as a consultant on the 10-part series with screenwriter Christopher Yost (Thor: The Dark World, Thor: Ragnarok) executive producing. Andre Nemec, Josh Appelbaum, Jeff Pinkner, and Scott Rosenberg of Midnight Radio also exec produce next to Yasuo Miyakawa, Masayuki Ozaki, and Shin Sasaki of Sunrise Inc., and Marty Adelstein and Becky Clements of Tomorrow Studios, and with Tetsu Fujimura, and Matthew Weinberg exec producing.