Keanu Reeves to star in ‘Cowboy Bebop’

By Mark Pollard | Published January 15, 2009

The Hollywood Reporter has confirmed that Keanu Reeves will indeed be portraying Spike Spiegal in 20th Century Fox’s live-action film adaptation of the hit anime series COWBOY BEBOP. This was something we could only previously speculate about when Reeves talked to MTV last month about plans to make the film with long-time producing partner Erwin Stoff (see related article).

A short-film writer and director named Peter Craig is writing the script. I don’t know much about him but he did write and direct a comedy short film called THE CLIMATIC DEATH OF DARK NINJA, self-described as “a movie about making a movie about ninjas.”

The good news is that original series director of animation Shinichiro Watanabe, along with series writer Keiko Nobumoto will serve as associate producers. Series producer Masahiko Minami will serve as production consultant.

Discuss this topic in our comments section below or in our related forum thread.

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  • sys h
    Wow.you realy have some complex there.GT. What have you stared in. Someone other than ***** must like Keanu, or we wouldn't ask or pay him to do our S**t movies.
  • GrandMaster T
    Keanu Reeves has all the emotional range of a dead fish. Suit certain parts he may, but the proposition of having him play a character of actual depth, nuance & charisma beyond the visual aesthetic chills me bad. f**k Hollwoods relentless quest to transform every beloved anime franchise into a cookie cutter teeny bopper action film. In truth, it's poor bastards like nicaraguan23 who, having had their brains raped by the engorged multi tentacled cock monster of Hollywood, continue, unwittingly, to fund the ruination of other peoples good ideas. Convinced that the matrix series was transcendent cinema, keanu reeves would make a good spike, and that Hollywood producers inspire, nay demand, cinematic integrity from their stooges, nicaraguan23 will queue at cinema with 1000's of his equally demented teenage peers, buy his ticket, watch the film, see some pretty special effects and concede, at the death, that well, it was 'all right'. Or maybe even 'kinda cool'. Well f**k that. A cowboy beebop film should be ball's achingly super mega awesome. A Dragonball Z film, with the budget that a Hollywood production provides, should make my arse gush blood with extreme puckered excitement. But it won't, because a lot of teenagers are as dumb as brain dead chickens and continue to pay for, and accept, mediocrity from an organisation that is more than happy to cater poos on a stick to the R13 crowd. Damn you all to the deepest, filthiest , most commercial bowels of hell itself.
  • BruisedLo
    i like reloaded because the fighting was at the level of good martial art film expectation. i don't wanna pick apart the matrix again, i've done that before, and the fans of this film started agruing. geez its just a movie, don't take it too seriously. for the first matrix, i'll put it like this, it's a A movie with B quality fights, or its more like a Z. sheesh and theres those B movies with A quality fights. i was watching a old school kung fu flick the other day. hwang jang lee fighting some guy, and of course its low budget, sometimes its easy to tell. the camera is just on them, barely cutting, and the set is crap. the only quality i saw was in the fights. so A quality martial art stars in B movies, how sad. the execution and timing is better.

    some of ya keep spelling bebop wrong haha its ok. well i never seen the anime, so i don't know why keanu is a good or bad choice for this character. wow is the series that good? i'm tempted to check it out now lol.

    a animation film is so different from a movie, because since everything is drawn, they need to get the point across asap, drawing takes too much time. this is why full anime feature films are always short because everything is drawn from frame to frame.
  • takai
    americans don't seem to grasp the concept of anime. Cowboy Bebop was made better more mature than most tv series or movies coming from hollywood. anime film makers don't focus on the animation first, they focus on the film. many anime hold very serious messages that many people would understand if they watched it as a FILM instead of a cartoon. but, like i said, some americans, (especially hollywood), just don't understand.

    more than likely, it won't have anything to do with the actual anime, aside from the name and maybe the general concept.

    we all know how amazing Cowboy Bebop was, and nobody is making us love this new bullsh*t
  • Stach Dragon
    Ya know I don't get it. Hollywood taking all these great books, anime, and comics and ruining them just cause they can. They are like a tyrant that will not stop because the stupid people of the world will see anything that has a pretty face, bright colors, or loud music. There is no art left. Do you remember how in the Matrix they only saw the world in symbols? Well, I think that is how Hollywood see's the world. Only its in money. I love Cowboy Bebob. It lies in my top three of best Anime of all time. It has heart and a specific art that you could recognize. So saying that I will say this. Keanu does not bother me at all. But the director is important. But looking at the track record so far I do not hace high hopes. The Dragonball movie is gonna be trash. The way Avatar is shaping up is not looking good either. (I know not Anime but still good) You know what Hollywood should do. Get the Anime Director to direct the films or at least be a consultant. well, I will shut up now. P.S. The Transporter was a pretty bad movie.
  • gunswordfist
    Man do I hate seeing this bad news for the 3rd time on another site. I don't hate Reeves at all and The Matrix was my absolute favorite movie for awhile but Reeves has NOWHERE near the amount of charisma needed to portray Spike Spiegel correctly. I've said it before and I'll say it again, at least we have Cowboy Bebop
    The (ANIMATED) Movie as the best anime movie ever created.
  • nicaraguan23
    So there you go I knew you liked Reeves. I accept this compromise. How could you say the matrix sucks and then say that you are into reloaded. That is a contradiction.
  • TheDenizen
    nicaraguan23, I feel sorry for you if you base your opinion on movies on what other people say on Rottentomatoes. If you liked the Matrix, that's great. I thought it was a steaming turd. I'd much rather see Keanu Reeves in Bill and Ted Part 3.
  • BruisedLo
    The Matrix does suck, I'm into Reloaded though. Hey if the guy doesn't like Keanu's movies, just respect his opinion. Not everyone in the freakin world likes his films.
  • nicaraguan23
    Rottentomatoes, critics, most american movie goers and even Kung Fu Cinema seem to disagree that the Matrix sucks. So stop trying to be cool no one is buying it. Did reeves reject your fan letter? I don't get where all this animosity is coming from.
  • TheDenizen
    Meh..."Bepop" is an easy typo to make.

    But this is terrible news. Keanu sucks (and so do Constantine, Speed and the Matrix triolgy), and this will be crap.
  • Rhythm-X
    Is Cowboy Bebop really so hard to spell correctly? If I had a dime for every time someone called it Cowboy Bepop, I'd have bought the remake rights myself, made an impossibly cheap film of it just to prevent the rights from reverting to anyone who might ever sell the to Hollywood again, and then shelved the film carefully on the ocean floor.
  • Respiratory Al
    I'm a big anime fan and especially Cowboy Bepop. Keanu Reeves, of the Matrix, is an interesting choice for Spike Spiegal. But the main thing about this website is martial arts/action and there's plenty of that in the original anime show. It better be of the caliber of Yuen Woo Ping (nuff' said), or Cory Yuen (The Transporter), to handle the martial arts/action part of the live action movie.
  • Jiu-Jitsu-Dragon
    i dont know bout this choice reeves just doesnt seem to have enough personality to pull of spike a highly animated (pun intended) character
  • BruisedLo
    I'm not a fan of the Matrix star, but I am for Yuen Woo Ping. No one is crying over Keanu, but if you're not even familiar with Cowboy Bebop, don't even start crap. If you know the anime well, and why Reeves is not a good choice, then go from there.
  • bOoMpOw
    Whether it be good or not, it will definitely be better than Dragonball Evolution!!! Although Reeves is a bit robotic, I think he can pull it off....maybe...
  • mahkiavelli
    Yeah, I'm surprisingly ok with Keanu as Spike - my concern is if they'll be able to match the "look" of the series, and get a supporting cast that does justice to the other characters.
  • justin quizon
    I can see Keanu doing alright in this...but the question is who's going to direct it. I honestly don't know where to start.
  • nicaraguan23
    Everyone who is in here crying about Reeves loved Speed, Constantine and the Matrix. Stop humping the trash Reeves bandwagon and wait and see. This Hollywood you are also trashing created Jaws, Starwars, X-men, Batman.... so quit the fussing.
  • NuLL
    No....this can't be.

    It's IMPOSSIBLE!
  • The Watcher
    He looks like him, but its going to b made my and directed by hollywood.... So mayb it will wrk???
  • sowutifmahsnsux
    the horror never ends
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