Exclusive: Keanu Reeves on COWBOY BEBOP, 47 RONIN, PASSENGERS, GENERATION UM, and Other Developing Projects

Yesterday afternoon I was offered the chance to interview Keanu Reeves for his new movie Henry’s Crime – which just premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival.  While I’ll have a lot more on the movie tomorrow (it’s a fun crime movie with just the right tone), towards the end of the interview, Reeves game me some brief updates on a number of projects he’s been associated with like Cowboy Bebop, 47 Ronin, Passengers, and Generation Um.   He also told me about a few other projects he developing like the romantic comedy It’s Not Me It’s You and Psyched.  More after the jump:

While I didn’t have a lot of time with Reeves so I couldn’t get in a lot of follow up questions, here’s what I learned:

• Cowboy Bebop sounds like it’s dead due to a high budget
• 47 Ronin looks like a project just about ready to go with director Carl Rinsch still helming.  Reeves says “they’ve done pre-production, we’re still working on the script, they’re done pre-viz, and they’re doing location scouting.  It’s ready to go.”
• Passengers doesn’t sound like it has a green light as he says it’s a “spaceship in waiting”.
• Finally, Reeves revealed he’s developing a romcom called It’s Not Me It’s You with Mark Hyman and a movie called Psyched with Kristen Gore about two psychics who fall in love.

Say what you will about Reeves, I give him a lot of credit for always working in different genres.

Finally, as I said in the intro, Henry’s Crime is playing at this year’s TIFF and Reeves is great in it.  If you’re in Toronto and can get a ticket, check it out as the film doesn’t yet have distribution so it could be awhile before you can see it in a regular movie theater.  Look for a lot more with Reeves tomorrow night.  Until then, here’s everything he said on future projects:

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Collider: You were attached to Cowboy Bebop for a little while.  Any update on that?

Reeves:  I haven’t heard anything back.  They turned in the script and it was very expensive.  I don’t know if they’re going to…it would cost, like, half a billion dollars to make that script.  So, I don’t know where it’s at right now.

How about 47 Ronin?

Reeves: We are hopefully going to make 47 Ronin.

Is Carl Rinsch still on it?

Reeves: Yeah.

Is it creeping forward or is it an express train forward?

Reeves: I think it’s a creeping express train.  Which means that they’ve done pre-production, we’re still working on the script, they’re done pre-viz, and they’re doing location scouting.  It’s ready to go. It’s a bullet train in waiting.

What about Passengers?

Reeves: Passengers is a spaceship in waiting.

You just started filming Generation Um.  How is that going?

Reeves: Two days in and it’s going great.

For people that don’t know, can you talk a little bit about what it’s about?

Reeves: Yeah.  It takes place over 24 hours.  You follow this character named John.  It’s basically the relationship between him and two call girls.  He’s the driver and he ends up stealing a video camera and hanging with them in an apartment.  It’s kind of about the interpersonal dynamics of this family.

Are you already thinking further ahead of that?  Now that you’ve had a taste of developing with Henry’s Crime, are there other things that are sitting there that you’re thinking about doing?

Reeves: Yeah. Absolutely.  I’ve been working with a writer named Mark Hyman on a project called It’s Not Me It’s You.  It’s kind of a romantic-comedy.  I’m working with a writer named Kristen Gore on another project called Psyched about two psychics who fall in love.  I’m working on this film but it’s all with my partner Stephen Hamel who is doing our production company, Company Films.  So, there’s other stuff trying to get done.