In an attempt to prevent the live action Astro Boy movie from turning into another "Godzilla" by Sony, Tezuka Productions seeks to oversee the production of the film every-step-of-the-way.
According to Internet Movie Database (IMDb): Officials at Tezuka Productions have said that they have obtained controlling rights in the production of a U.S. live-action version of Astro Boy, the long-running animated kids show.
In an interview with the Asahi Shimbun, Takayuki Matsutani, president of Tezuka, said that he and his colleagues were shocked at the way Sony recreated Godzilla in its $125-million epic in 1998 as a totally unsympathetic monster. "No way did we want a repetition of that," Matsutani told the newspaper. Under the deal, he said, Teszuka has the right to approve the look and character of Astro Boy and allows it to make script revisions at three different stages of the preproduction. He said he would insist that Astro Boy not be turned into "a mindless automaton" and that he wanted assurances that the film would portray the essence of the series' message -- that one day humanity will coexist with a machine civilization.
Meanwhile, Sony has announced that a new Astro Boy TV series has been picked up by Kids WB! Tezuka said that it has budgeted more than $250,000 for each of 26 episodes, which the company said was three times the cost of most animated shows. It is due to debut in early 2004.
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