Jason Reitman is turning a beloved manga series into a live-action movie.
Reitman is known for making 2008’s Juno and 2010’s Up in the Air, both of which received Academy Award nominations. Having made Thank You for Smoking in 2005, Reitman then went on to make 2011’s Young Adult, 2013’s Labor Day, 2014’s Men, Women & Children, 2008’s Tully, 2018’s The Front Runner, and 2024’s Saturday Night after Up in the Air. He also co-wrote the screenplay for 2024’s Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, which was directed by Gil Kenan.
What manga series is Jason Reitman turning into a live-action movie?
Now, per Jeff Sneider’s The InSneider, Reitman and Kenan are tackling a live-action Astro Boy movie for Sony Pictures.
Just how involved Reitman and Kenan will be with the Astro Boy movie remains to be seen. Sneider reports that Reitman is not attached to direct it at this point and that Sony is “currently seeking writers to turn Astro Boy into a four-quadrant film for the whole family.” However, it also seems entirely possible that Reitman could end up directing the project should he so choose to.
No further details beyond that are available at this time. The project appears to still be in early development, meaning there is not yet a release date for the movie.
Astro Boy was originally a Japanese manga series that was written and illustrated by Osamu Tezuka. The original run was from 1952 to 1968, with Dark Horse Comics then publishing an English translation in 2002.
Astro Boy has been turned into a handful of anime series over the years, while there’s also been plenty of other related media. Imagi Animation Studios and Summit Entertainment released an animated Astro Boy movie, which was directed by David Bowers, in the United States in 2009, while there have also been several unsuccessful attempts to make a film about the character.
