Movie distributor Eleven Arts confirmed on Tuesday that it is partnering with Funimation Entertainment to release the anime film Trigun: Badlands Rumble in summer 2011.

Funimation has confirmed with ANN that some theaters will show an English-dubbed version of the film, while others will show the film with the original Japanese track. The company also told ANN that the official Funimation Trigun website will be updated with the screening schedule "soon." Funimation originally indicated its plans to release the film theatrically when it announced the license at Anime Expo 2010.

Yasuhiro Nightow's manga Trigun was originally launched in 1995 in Tokuma Shoten's Shonen Captain manga anthology. In 1997 the magazine folded and Nightow switched publishers, releasing Trigun Maximum in Shonen Gahosha's Young King Ours until the series ended in 2008. In 1998, Madhouse Studios animated a television anime based on the series, which Geneon USA licensed in 1999. After Geneon USA closed, Funimation acquired the rights to the original series. Dark Horse Comics acquired the North American rights to both manga series in 2003, and published the series' final volume in 2009.

Plans for an animated Trigun feature film date back as far as 2005, when Madhouse's Masao Maruyama told a U.K. anime magazine that his studio was working on the film. However, the movie did not come to fruition until its spring 2010 release in Japan.

Update: Added background information.

Update 2: Added more background information.

Update 3: Added sub/dub information.