The forthcoming live-action adaptation of Cowboy Bebop is arriving later this year, Netflix has confirmed.
- READ MORE: ‘Cowboy Bebop’ live-action Netflix series: cast, release date, trailer and everything we know so far
The streaming service announced the news earlier today (June 9) as part of its ongoing Geeked Week. In a new clip, Netflix revealed that the highly anticipated series will arrive in the fall later this year, though an official release date is not yet confirmed. The video also revealed that its upcoming soundtrack will be handled by familiar hands.
Yoko Kanno, the frontwoman of Japanese band Seatbelts, is set to contribute original music to the show. Kanno’s work on the anime series is highlighted by the show’s jazzy theme song, ‘Tank!’.
Watch the show’s main cast members John Cho, Danielle Pineda and Mustafa Shakir jam along to the track in the clip below.
Yoko Kanno, the composer behind the iconic soundtrack of the original COWBOY BEBOP anime will be creating the soundtrack for the new Live Action Series. Also confirmed…Cowboy Bebop is coming this Fall. #GeekedWeek pic.twitter.com/6lHZQcoFR6
— Netflix Geeked (@NetflixGeeked) June 8, 2021
Aside from Cowboy Bebop, Kanno’s soundtrack work includes anime shows Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex and Macross Frontier, along with films by Hirokazu Kore-eda and Hiroshi Ishikawa.
Cowboy Bebop has seen a lengthy production schedule since 2019, marred by an on-set knee injury sustained by Cho – who plays the show’s main character, Spike Spiegel – and the ensuing pandemic in 2020. It officially wrapped production earlier this year.
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The show will premiere on Netflix with 10 episodes booked for one season. Each episode will run for an hour, as opposed to the original anime’s shorter episode runtime. Co-writer Javier Grillo-Marxuach told io9 that the longer episodes will help give the series room to develop its own narrative and expand the stories of different characters – deviating from the original show’s format, which primarily focused on episodic adventures.
He said: “We’re not going to go one-to-one on all of [the original show’s] stories because we’re also trying to tell the broader story of Spike Spiegel and the Syndicate, Spike Spiegel and Julia, Spike Spiegel and Vicious, and all that.
“But we are looking at the show and saying, ‘Who are some of the great villains in this show, and how can we put them into this broader narrative?’ So that we are telling both of the big stories that Cowboy Bebop tells.”