There's a live-action Mega Man movie in the works at Netflix, thus adding to the streamer's ever-expanding repertoire of video game adaptations, following the success of Castlevania, Dragon's Dogma and more on the hit streaming platform.
As reported by The Verge, the Mega Man movie has actually been in development since 2015 at Chernin Entertainment. It was officially announced by Capcom, the creators of the Mega Man video game series, back in 2018, and the project has now found itself at the doorstep of Netflix.
There's currently no word as to when we'll see the first trailers or learn of the release window for the Mega Man movie adaptation, though IGN notes that it's still very much early in development. Don't expect any news on the project for a while, then.
If you're unfamiliar with the blue bomber, Capcom's original mascot debuted on the NES way back in 1987. The Mega Man series (and its sequel series Mega Man X) is primarily comprised of side-scrolling action games, though spin-offs like Mega Man Battle Network and Mega Man Legends have maintained loyal fanbases over the years too.
Mega Man might not elicit as much excitement as the likes of Mario or Link these days, but his legacy is an important one, nonetheless – and his addition to the Super Smash Bros. series, alongside this new live-action movie adaptation, certainly show there's still a lot of love for the character among fans.
Is live-action a good fit for Mega Man?
A common element between most Mega Man games is their cartoonish aesthetic, which isn't something that immediately meshes well with live-action. And although the Sonic the Hedgehog movie (and its upcoming sequel) surprised us greatly with its overall quality, that's no indication that a Mega Man movie will fare the same.
We're in something of a renaissance period for video game adaptations – the aforementioned Castlevania series was particularly brilliant – though overall quality is still massively inconsistent. The recent Mortal Kombat movie, for example, was a mixed bag at best.
Worse still were two other recent Capcom adaptations: Monster Hunter and Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City. Both attempted to emulate their series of origin, and arguably failed spectacularly with poor direction and questionable plot elements.
That's not to say a Mega Man movie is doomed to failure. We'd of course love to be surprised, but Mega Man, given its cartoonish nature, won't be an easy game to convert into a live-action movie. If it were to be an animated feature, we'd be a lot more confident. But when it comes to live-action, all we can think of is "bad box art Mega Man," and that has us pretty nervous.
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