Oscar-nominated shorts director Tomek Bagiński first came on our radar several years ago with a series of Allegro-backed fantasy shorts titled Polish Legends. He’s attained other credits both before and after and he’s currently executive producing The Witcher series for Netflix while things are slowly gaining traction on the market front for his feature debut on live-action anime adaptation, Knights Of The Zodiac: Saint Seiya.
As Screendaily notes, GFM Films is reportedly boarding sales on the project at the American Film Market and is providing funding alongside Toei Animation Co., Sola Entertainment and A Really Good Film Company. Based on the work of mangaka Kurumada Masami, the manga launched in 1986 from Shueisha and carried over through 1990 at Weekly Shōnen Jump. Morishita Kōzō Morishita and Kikichi Kazuhito respectively directed their episodes for the original 114-part series before Saint Seiya would live on through multiple spin-off anime and manga works, and up to five animated features to date.
The sprawling action-adventure epic centers on five mystical knights, endowed by the cosmos and gifted with sacred “cloths” – armor tethered to their respective interstellar constellations – to defend the reincarnation of Athena against other Olympian gods who want to dominate Earth. Central to the cast is Seiya, a troubled young man who ultimately answers the call to train and become the Pegasus Knight in order to help save mankind from these threatening mythological forces.
Bagiński will direct from a screenplay by Will Geiger, Blazej Dzikowski and Eugene Son. Producing are Ikezawa Yoshi, Joseph Chou and Jeffrey Chan with Tim Kwok and Miguel A. Faura executive producing as post-production rolls on for a summer 2019 shoot.
The news comes after more than a year of developing updates pertaining to a CG-animated Netflix series remake of the original anime from director Ashino Yoshiharu and writer Son which may very well bow in 2019 as well.