Netflix's live-action adaptation of Cowboy Bebop has assembled its crew.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, John Cho has joined the series alongside Luke Cage's Mustafa Shakir, Daniella Pineda and Alex Hassell. Cho will play Spike Spiegel, who is described as "an impossibly cool 'cowboy' (bounty hunter) with a deadly smile, a wry wit, and style to spare. He travels the solar system with his ex-cop partner, Jet, pursuing the future’s most dangerous bounties with a combination of charm, charisma -- and deadly Jeet Kune Do."
Meanwhile, Shakir's Jet Black will be "one of the few honest cops in the solar system before an ultimate betrayal robbed him of all that he loved, forcing him into a vagabond life of hunting bounties to put food on the table. Jet is an inveterate jazz enthusiast and Captain of the Bebop."
Pineda will appear as Faye Valentine, "an amnesiac thief and con artist." Hassell, on the other hand, is Vicious, "Spiegel’s ex-partner who is now out to kill him."
Marvel Netflix director Alex Garcia Lopez will direct the pilot, which was written by executive producer Christopher Yost. Shinichiro Watanabe, who directed the original anime, serves as consultant on the series.
According to the series synopsis,
Based on the worldwide phenomenon from Sunrise Inc., Cowboy Bebop is the jazz-inspired, genre-bending story of Spike Spiegel, Jet Black, Faye Valentine and Radical Ed: a rag-tag crew of bounty hunters on the run from their pasts as they hunt down the solar system’s most dangerous criminals. They’ll even save the world…for the right price.
Originally released in 1998, the futuristic sci-fi series followed a group of bounty hunters known as Cowboys and their strange adventures in space as they attempted to catch various criminals. In the U.S., the show primarily aired in the early '00s on Adult Swim and helped to shape what would later be a huge wave of fandom for anime. The series often had very adult-themed content in it.
Netflix's live-action Cowboy Bebop series does not yet have a release date.