Cowboy Bebop Live Action TV Series Coming to Netflix

Well, here’s something we never expected to see. Cowboy Bebop, the brilliant, space-hopping anime with one of the greatest soundtracks in TV history is getting a live action adaptation for Netflix.

I can’t recommend Cowboy Bebop enough, and I’m certainly no expert on anime. Running for 26 episodes plus a feature length animated movie, Cowboy Bebop is about Spike Siegel and his ragtag group of bounty hunters, and the wild misadventures they go on. I guess the easiest way to describe it is kinda like an animated series where you’re basically in different versions of Star Wars’ Mos Eisley spaceport each episode, but that’s really underselling it.

Here’s the official synopsis of the new series…which sounds just like the synopsis of the original series. Which is great!

“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.”

So, this could go either way at this stage, but there’s some good news here. Shinichiro Watanabe (the original anime’s director) is consulting, with Yasuo Miyakawa, Masayuki Ozaki, and Shin Sasaki of Sunrise Inc., who produced the original Cowboy Bebop, serving as executive producers, alongside Marty Adelstein, Becky Clements, Tetsu Fujimura, Matthew Weinberg, and Midnight Radio (including Josh Appelbaum, Andre Nemec, Jeff Pinkner, and Scott Rosenberg).

Chris Yost (Thor: The Dark World) is writing the first episode.

further reading: The Best Anime to Stream and Where to Find Them

This isn’t the first time there have been plans to adapt Cowboy Bebop for western audiences in live action. A very long time ago, Keanu Reeves was in line to play Spike in a big screen version. That never happened, and for a number of reasons, it’s probably for the best.

Whatever they do with this adaptation, they had better include that original soundtrack, though…

Mike Cecchini is the Editor in Chief of Den of Geek. You can read more of his work here. Follow him on Twitter @wayoutstuff.