COWBOY BEBOP Writer Explains How the Live-Action Netflix Series Captures the Spirit and Style of the Source Material

A lot of fans are excited to see how Netflix’s upcoming live-action adaptation of Cowboy Bebop turns out. I’m honestly not quite sure what the expect. I love that John Cho is playing Spike Spiegel, the leader of a group of intergalactic bounty hunters, though. He’s going to be awesome. But, thanks to writer Javier Grillo-Marxuach we have some information on what to expect from the tone and style of the series. I think fans are going to be happy with what he had to say.

While talking to io9, the writer said:

“You can’t look at Cowboy Bebop and say, ‘Well, it’s just a take-off point. We’re going to give them different hair and different clothing, and we’re gonna call it something different. And it’s just sort of gonna be a loose thing.’ If you’re doing Cowboy Bebop, you’re doing Cowboy Bebop. You know? It’s kind of like doing Star Wars.”

A lot of fans are worried that the cool and weird style of the original series will be lost in the adaptation, but it doesn’t sound like that’s going to be the case. Grillo-Marxuach goes on to reveal that he has already seen a cut of the first episode, and after raving about it, he said:

“Being a sci-fi nerd in the ‘90s meant you’d sit there and watch a show, and for the first act, you’re usually just getting information you already know. Flash forward to like almost 30 years later and TV is weird now, like TV is batshit crazy right now. It is hard to tell people how weird Game of Thrones is to me, having grown up in a world where the thing most like Game of Thrones was a show called Wizards and Warriors that was on CBS in the late ‘80s. We can be weird. We can look at anime and take design cues out of anime.”

He went on to explain that the series will not be a straight adaptation. The live-action series will have its own narrative, and this is because the series will be hour-long episodes. The Anime came in 22-minute installments and the way the show is broken up into episodes affects the pacing. He explained that this show “is not a replacement for the original show, it’s just a new piece of the canon.”

“We don’t want the fans of the show to look at it and say that we failed them or we failed the original.”

It also explained that there will be some little stakes to the story so that they can broaden out Spike’s story into a longer narrative in and of itself. They want to use the opportunity to expand the story and larger arcs more. The writer explains:

“You’ve got a show where you have 26 episodes that are full of very colorful villains, very colorful stories, very colorful adversaries, bounties, and all of that. We’re not going to go one-to-one on all of those 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 into this broader narrative?’ So that we are telling both of the big stories that Cowboy Bebop tells.”

It’s then explained that there will be a few other changes, and they use Faye’s revealing costume from the anime as an example. That’s something they are toning down for the series because, as Grillo-Marxuach put it, “We need to have a real human being wearing that.” The creative team just had to find a balance between “honoring the spirit of the original and adapting to the medium and audience.”

“You’ve got an entity that is very much a kind of gathering together of influences that were very important in post-war Japan: jazz, American pop culture, the whole sort-of cowboy thing, reality television. So, you’re looking at a show that’s already a commentary on the influence of American pop culture with Japanese culture in the future, in space. And then we’re taking that and then we’re...trying to translate that not just in English, but also a format that is not the original format of the show.”

That makes sense! They also wanted to make sure that they brought in a very diverse cast that is true to characters from the source material. “Spike Spiegel has to be Asian. Like, you can’t Scarlett Johansson this shit. We are making a show that takes place in a future that is multicultural, that is extraordinarily integrated and where those things are the norm.”

One final thing that Grillo-Marxuach wanted to add was how he thinks that they’ve created a wonderful translation of the series, and he hopes fans of the anime will check it out and enjoy it:

“Everybody has a different idea of what the best version of a show is, and a lot of Cowboy Bebop fans believe that the anime is the best version of that show. We hope that we can convert them to look at our version of it, and think that it’s a wonderful translation, a wonderful addition to the original canon. We’re deep enough in a world that where fandom is important to the existence of shows, that people like me don’t ever really lose sight of that. I think that there are always going to be tone-deaf reboots of things and all of that, but we’re fans. You know, we come at this as fans. We love genre, we love science fiction, and we love Cowboy Bebop.”

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.”

The cast for the series also includes Elena Satine as Julia, along with Mustafa Shakir (Luke Cage) as Jet Black, Daniella Pineda (Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom) as Faye Valentin, and Alex Hassell (Suburbicon) as Vicious.

The first season of the Cowboy Bebop series will consist of ten episodes. Christopher Yost is also a writer and executive producer on the show. He previously worked on Thor: Ragnarok, Thor: The Dark World, Star Wars Rebels, Hulk Vs, X-Men: Evolution, The Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, and more.

As of right now, we have no idea when the series will be released. But, three episodes were completed before production shut down.