Nicolas Cage’s fantastic flop that bankrupted the studio

Osamu Tezuka changed Japanese pop culture with his manga, Astro Boy. In a future world, Japanese science minister Dr. Tenma loses his son Tobio in a car accident. It recreates Tobias as the android Astro (known as Atom in the original Japanese). There is mango a futuristic reimagining of Pinocchio which becomes a superhero story.

You can trace Japan’s love affair with robots back to “Astro Boy”—without it, modern mecha and shounen manga/anime wouldn’t exist. Although a staple in Japan, Astro Boy is not an icon in the United States. One attempt to import it, the 2009 CGI-animated Astro Boy by Imagi Animation Studios, failed and Imagi remained underwater.

Imagi was founded in Hong Kong in 2000, first producing the CGI animated series Zentrix in 2002. In 2007, they signed a three-film distribution deal with Warner Bros. The first fruit of this deal was the 2007 animated film TMNT. “TMNT” was a success, so Imagi moved on to picture #1. 2: “Astro Boy.”

The film was directed by David Bowers, co-director Dreamworks’ muddled film “Flushed Away” is no longer one of the studio’s best films. (Since “Astro Boy” flopped, Bauer has only directed live-action Movies “Diary of a Weak”.) The over-qualified cast includes Freddie Highmore, Bill Nighy, the late Donald Sutherland and Nicolas Cage as Dr. Tenma.

Astro Boy was reported to have cost $65 million, but grossed only $42 million at the box office when it opened in October 2009. In February 2010, Imagi filed for bankruptcy. Does ‘Astro Boy’ deserve a second chance? Is it a forgotten masterpiece waiting to be re-evaluated? No, the audience got it right from the first call.

2009’s Astro Boy makes major changes to the source material, probably in the name of a more “universal” film. Character names are Americanized; Tobia becomes Tobi, Umatara Tenma becomes Bill Tenma, and Dr. Achanomizu becomes Dr. Elefun. The setting has also changed from 21st century Japan to a post-apocalyptic future where wealthy people live in a floating “Metro City” above the polluted surface. (This all seems closer to “WALL-E” and “Battle Angel Alita” than “Astro Boy”.)

The script is fueled by broad archetypes of children’s films, and as with other Imagi films, the CGI is dull and primitive. (The tactility of “Astro Boy” matches that of “Toy Story,” a film fourteen years older.) The flat animation softens Tezuka’s distinctive character designs; compare “Astro Boy” with The underrated Metropolis anime from 2001. which stunningly brought his world into 2-D animation.

“Astro Boy” has one truly rare feature, a performance by Nicolas Cage over the phone. This man would go on to deliver some of the most raw on-screen performances of grief I’ve ever seen in Mandy and Pig. As Tenma, he’s just going through the motions.

Essentially, as far as the reimagining of the Mighty Atom goes, Imagi’s “Astro Boy” is no “Pluto.” Drawn by Naoki Urasawa, Pluto retold Astro Boy’s World’s Greatest Robot arc as a cyber noir detective — read my review of Pluto here. (And yes, Dr. Tenma in Urasawa’s horror-thriller manga Monster named after the one in “Astro Boy”.)

Due to the failure of “Astro Boy”, Imagi’s plans for more manga/anime adaptations remained unrealized. We should probably be thankful that they were.

“Astro Boy” has an open ending, with Astro flying against an alien monster that has appeared out of nowhere to attack Metro City. Obviously no sequel followed, but the film ends with room for more. While “Astro Boy” was in production, Imagi already had two follow-up films in the works. One of them might be “Gatchaman,” an adaptation of the 1970s anime about a five-person superhero team of “scientific ninjas.” (Gatchaman is the original Super Sentai, aka the original Japanese version of the show Americans know as Power Rangers.) Imagi’s Gatchaman was far enough along to release a two-minute teaser (see below). However, when the studio collapsed, so did the film.

Imagi also planned “T28”, an adaptation another Japan’s OG robot franchise: Mitsuteru Yokayama’s Tetsujin-28 manga about a scientist’s son who owns a remote-controlled robot. (The series was released in the US under the title “Gigantor”) Like “Gatchaman”, teaser – everything that came out of “T28”.

Demo video by former Imagi animator Mak Ching Lok also indicates that the studio may have wanted to adapt Trigun, Yasuhiro Knight’s space western manga/anime. The reel includes an unfinished and unpainted segment of Trigun hero Vas Stampede walking up to the bar and asking for a refill. No other details of the potential Trigun movie have been released by Imagi.

In 2023 Studio Orange has released a new Trigun anime — Trigun: Stampede — that depicts the world of the Knights through 3-D CGI animation. In this alone, Imagi was ahead of its time. With “Astro Boy” there were none.