Even though Summit Entertainment released an Astro Boy movie in 2009 and it didn’t even crack $40 million worldwide, the folks at Animal Logic Entertainment are interested in giving the source material another shot. According to THR, Animal Logic just teamed up with Japan’s Tezuka Productions to make a live-action Astro Boy film.

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The Japanese manga was created back in the 1950s and is set in the future when robots and humans are equals. The story centers on an especially powerful robot that Doctor Tenma develops after losing his son in a tragic car accident. When Tenma comes to realize that the robot cannot replace his son, he sells him off to a cruel circus owner. Eventually, Professor Ochanomizu takes note of the robot’s special abilities and becomes his legal guardian, paving the way for Astro Boy to put his powers to good use by fighting evil.

Animal Logic has done a good deal of special effects work, but in 2007, the company jumped into development and is currently working on a number of projects including the Betty Boop feature. Apparently Animal Logic is going for “a four-quadrant adventure movie tailor-made for the comic book movie age” with this one. Here’s what producer Zareh Nalbandian had to say about the endeavor:

“We’ve seen him as a manga, an anime and an animated movie but we’ve never seen him as a live-action movie or him as a superhero. We actually see him in the same league as an Iron Man.”

That basically translates to, superhero movies are especially hot right now so we want to get in on the action, and there’s nothing wrong with that as long as they do more with the character than the 2009 animated film.

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