Young people who didn’t grow up with the Mega Man franchise may have their first look at the robot hero on the big screen instead of a gaming system.
Hollywood news site The Tracking Board has reported that a Mega Man movie has been greenlit by 20th Century Fox, to be co-produced with Chernin Entertainment. The Tracking Board names Peter Chernin specifically as the producer—though it doesn’t identify a source for its information. Chernin produces the rebooted Planet of the Apes franchise, and also produced Oblivion, the 2013 sci-fi film starring Tom Cruise.
The Daily Dot reached out to 20th Century Fox to confirm the project, but did not get a response by publication time.
The Mega Man platformer series was one of the first major video game franchises to launch off the success of the Nintendo Entertainment System, beginning with the release of the original Mega Man in December 1987. There have since been dozens of Mega Man games on consoles and handheld systems. Developer Keiji Inafune rose to his prominent position within the video game industry via his work as Mega Man’s co-creator.
Reverence for the Mega Man series led to the creation of an entirely new game engine for Mega Man Legacy Collection, released on Aug. 25, to insure that the first six Mega Man 8-bit games were reproduced accurately to the smallest detail on modern game consoles.
Mega Man also continues to be relevant via appearances in the Super Smash Bros. fighting game series, as a costume in Super Mario Maker, as one of Nintendo’s amiibo figurines, as a popular game franchise for speedruns, and also through the production of high-quality collectibles that always grab the attention of the geek world.
H/T The Tracking Board | Screengrab via Mega Man/YouTube
