![]() ![]() It’s more important to him that the adaptation does a great job of honoring the original. When asked who should be cast in the rumored live-action series, Blum can’t think of any big names. In person, he’s a really, really cool guy. He certainly has the right body type for it and he’s got a zen way about him. But Blum thought it would have been interesting to see Reeves take on his iconic role. Unfortunately, despite Reeves’s enthusiasm, the project never came to fruition. His concern was that it just wouldn’t get greenlit in time for him to be able to do his own stunts without being an old man.” Casting a Live-Action Cowboy Bebop Blum believes that Watanabe and Kanno should be involved in any live-action adaptations of 'Cowboy Bebop.' It’s amazing, but it would cost half a billion dollars to produce. “He said at that time that there’s this beautiful script for it. I believe he actually optioned the rights to the movie,” says Blum. “I wanted to know if he was as invested in it as people needed him to be for something like that, and he certainly was. And I just asked him about his thoughts on doing the live-action film. After going through my 8-year-old, internal fanboy squee that he knew who I was, we settled into a conversation. “Then I told him who I was and he said that he knew my work. I had a little fanboy moment with him at first,” Blum gleefully recalls. “I actually met him in an airport, and we had a discussion about. He spoke with the man whose name was attached to the film - Keanu Reeves. When word of the live-action film spread, fans were doubtful that Hollywood would do the anime justice. So, it was no surprise when Hollywood decided to try and capitalize on the animated space western. Indeed, Cowboy Bebop introduced anime to an entire generation of fans and quickly ingrained itself in Western pop culture. It was an homage to American culture as much as it was for Japanese culture.” Keanu Reeves and the Live-Action Film Keanu Reeves was actually a fan of the anime. ![]() Blum continues, “ Once people gave it a chance, they saw that this was something very different and really special. “ It broke the mold for anime and got a lot of people interested who wouldn’t even give dubbed anime a chance until that point.” Cowboy Bebop broke the mold when it came to English-dubbed performances, throwing a wrench into the argument that dubs are inferior. So, once it got out there to the masses, we were actually kind of shocked at how well it was received and how many demographics it would cross. “ In those days, we had no idea if anybody would even see them because most anime shows were going out on VHS, and they were super expensive,” says Blum. Niche streaming sites like Crunchyroll didn’t exist yet. ![]() Finding anime back in the ’90s wasn’t as easy as it is now. That’s if anyone even saw the anime they worked on at all. “ I had worked on so many other shows prior to Bebop that we all loved and the audience really seemed to like, but when I would go to conventions people would still scream at us saying that we were destroying the art form,” Blum recalls. Even Spike’s voice actor Steve Blum was surprised by the anime’s wide appeal, particularly the English-dubbed version of the show. Unexpected Success The anime's success even surprised its cast.īack when Cowboy Bebop‘s English dub was being recorded, the cast didn’t know that fans would continue to praise the anime for the next two decades. FANDOM sat down with Spike‘s English voice actor Steve Blum to discuss Cowboy Bebop‘s lasting success, that time he met Keanu Reeves at an airport, and the rumored live-action series. But that doesn’t mean that no one’s ever tried. With its wide appeal and western pop culture references, it’s a miracle that it hasn’t been adapted yet. Shinichiro Watanabe‘s Cowboy Bebop has become a cultural phenomenon that we continue to revisit even 20 years later. ![]()
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