News
Saint Seiya Manga Gets Live-Action Hollywood Film
posted on by Karen Ressler
The Eiga.com news website reported on Friday that a Hollywood live-action film based on Masami Kurumada's Saint Seiya manga has been green-lit. Toei Animation and Chinese distribution company A Really Good Film Company (ARGF) are co-producing the film.
Polish director Tomek Baginski, who previously directed the Academy Award-nominated short animation "Katedra," is directing the film. ARGF's Jeffrey Chan and Toei Animation's Yoshi Ikezawa and Joseph Chou will serve as producers. Kurumada, Toei Animation's Kōzō Morishita, Convergence Entertainment's Tim Kwok, and Miguel Faura will serve as executive producers.
The story follows Seiya, a mortal who has trained to earn the sacred cloth of Pegasus. He joins the Saints, a group of fighters who must defend the universe and the reincarnation of the goddess Athena.
Kurumada published the original Saint Seiya manga from 1986 to 1990. The manga has inspired a number of television anime, OVAs, anime films, and spinoff manga. The original series has 35 million copies in print. The Saint Seiya: Saintia Shō spinoff manga has an anime in the works.
Viz Media published the original manga in English under the title Saint Seiya: Knights of the Zodiac. ADV Films released Toei Animation's anime adaptation with an English dub under the title Knights of the Zodiac, and later released it unedited under the title Saint Seiya. New Video Group later also released the series on DVD.
Source: Eiga.com
Update: Toei Animation confirmed with ANN that it is working on an English language live-action film and named more producers and executive producers (listed above).
this article has been modified since it was originally posted; see change history