I’m not sure what to make of this. AICN is reporting that Keanu Reeves will play the role of Spike Speigel in 20th Century Fox’s adaptation of Cowboy Bebop for the big screen. Now, Cowboy Bebop ranks among the best anime series of all time (up there with Neon Genesis Envangelion and Ghost in the Shell and one of my personal faves, Full Metal Alchemist, though not all will agree). I did not dislike The Day The Earth so much, aside from the needless changes to the original script and that Keanu is about as flat an actor as you can get.

That may, however, work in his favor in CB as Spike is a cool, flat character who has as many layers as an onion, though its not easy to get to the deeper ones. CB is a deeply textured series and each episode tells a story. There is an overriding arc, but its hard to pin down. I fear that they will have difficulty generating a script, even though they are working with Sunrise (the original Anime production team). Its still in the hands of unknown sciber, Peter Craig. The IMDB entry gives 2011 for the film’s release and Craig has no prior writing credits. This should be interesting, to say the least.

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