Naoki Urasawa’s “Astro Boy” Manga “Pluto” Headed to Big Screen

Deadline is reporting that Universal and Illumination Entertainment, the new company responsible for the very good Despicable Me, will be working with Tezuka Productions (founded by Astro Boy creator Osamu Tezuka) to adapt Naoki Urasawa‘s Pluto into a film.

According to Chris Meledandri, founder of Illumination:

“With Pluto, Naoki Urasawa has defined an imaginative world full of inventive action and adventure but it was his characters and heartfelt story that compelled me towards acquiring these rights.”

The story is in fact a mature retelling of Tezuka’s “The Greatest Robot on Earth” story arc from the original Astro Boy manga. Instead of centering on Astro Boy himself, the protagonist here is Gesicht, a Europol robot detective trying to solve a series of robot and human murders — apparently orchestrated by a robot for the first time in eight years (let’s hope this wasn’t the first step).

For those of you that are interested, you can read the series here.

This is exciting news. After all, our site’s own namesake comes from another of Urasawa’s works, 20th Century Boys.

[via /Film]



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