‘Walking Dead’ Producer Gale Anne Hurd Developing ‘Gaiking’ Live-Action Feature

Gale Anne Hurd and her Valhalla Entertainment are teaming up with Toei Animation and All Nippon Entertainment Works to develop the giant robot property Gaiking into a feature film.

No writer is on board but Hurd will produce the project with Toei’s Yoshi Ikezawa and Joseph Chou.

Sandy Climan, Tim Kwok and Kozo Morishita of Toei Animation are executive producing.

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Valhalla’s director of development, Kris Henigman, will oversee development, as will Annmarie Bailey of ANEW.

Gaiking was a short-lived Japanese animated series that ran in the mid-1970s. It became part of the toy line Shogun Warriors, popular in America in the late 1970s, and was repurposed as cartoon series Force Five in the early 1980s. 

The story tells of an alien invasion and how Earth creates giant piloted robots, known as mechas, to defend itself. The main character is a former baseball star who is recruited to pilot the biggest of the mechas.

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Stories of mechas have been popular in Japan for decades. Their popularity will be getting a global and American test next year with the release of Pacific Rim, Guillermo del Toro’s $200 million tentpole which pits mechas against giant monsters.

Hurd is one of the executive producers behind The Walking Dead and was behind the upcoming Sundance Premiere film Very Good Girls. She is also developing the action thriller The Nameless with Route One.

Toei is the largest animation house in Japan and behind such series as Dragon Ball and Sailor Moon.