Joseph Luster
September 22, 2021 
If you thought Netflix’s upcoming live-action Cowboy Bebop series was going to be a straight-up remake, you’ve got another thing coming. While the John Cho-starring series is looking to keep things authentic—complete with Yoko Kanno handling the music—showrunner André Nemec told Entertainment Weekly that they don’t plan on simply retreading familiar territory.
“We will never take the original anime away from the purists,” Nemec told EW. “It will always exist out there. But I’m very excited about the stories that we’re telling.”
Nemec says he thinks they did a good job of “not violating the canon in any direction,” instead offering “extra glimpses into the world that was already created” and delivering an “expansion to the canon” that will build on aspects of the world and characters that have been established. The team behind the series looked back at how the characters were portrayed there, and mined their “archetypal nature” to explore their histories further and dig into loose backstory threads.
“To just redo the anime will leave an audience hungry,” Nemec added while praising director Shinichiro Watanabe’s work on the original. “The anime did an amazing job. We don’t need to serve the exact same meal. I think it would have been disappointing if we did.”
The full interview is available over at Entertainment Weekly, and is definitely worth a read for anyone interested in what the live-action Cowboy Bebop series has to offer ahead of its November 19 premiere.
Source: Entertainment Weekly
