Netflix released new art from the upcoming animated Ultraman movie.
The new image depicts a highly stylized version of the titular hero as he unleashes his trademark Ultra Beam attack. The new art is the first new material to be released from the movie, which was first announced by Netflix in 2021, in quite sometime. The animated film is being developed as a collaboration between Tsuburaya Productions, the Japanese entertainment studio behind the original live-action Ultraman show, and Industrial Light and Magic, the legendary special effects company that is best known for its work on the Star Wars franchise.
Netflix describes the movie's story with the following:
When baseball superstar Ken Sato returns home to Japan to pick up the mantle of Earth-defending superhero Ultraman, he quickly finds more than he bargained for. He’s forced to raise his greatest foe’s offspring, a newborn Kaiju. Just as the original series, Kaijus consisted of villainous monsters jeopardizing the peace of the universe. Struggling to balance the roles of teammate and new father, Ken must confront his own ego, his estranged father and the conniving Kaiju Defense Force to rise up and discover what it truly means to be Ultraman.
The new movie will be directed by Shannon Tindle and John Aoshima. "“With this film, we’re merging old and new, combining our love for the original Ultramanwith a bold new look drawn from manga, anime and, of course, the original series,” the directing duo said in a statement. The rest of the movie's cast and crew, as well as a release date for the film, have yet to be announced.
The new movie appears to be set in an entirely different continuity from the series' latest live-action movie, Shin Ultraman, which premiered in Japan earlier this spring. That movie was directed by Shin Godzilla's Shinji Higuchi and featured a story by Hideaki Anno, the creator of the acclaimed anime series Neon Genesis Evangelion. Anno is now working on a reboot of another tokusatsu icon, Shin Kamen Rider, which is due out in Japan in 2023.
Netflix's new animated movie also appears feature a story that is unconnected to the streaming giant's Ultraman animated series, which aired its second season earlier this year and is scheduled to return for a third and final season in 2023. That series is based on a 2011 manga which was written by Eiichi Shimizu and drawn by Tomohiro Shimoguchi. The series centers on Shinjiro Hayata, the son of original protagonist Shin Hayata, and serves as a direct sequel to the original 1966 show that ignores the events of all of the other sequels and spinoffs in the franchise.
Source: Netflix, Twitter