Prepare to polish the Mach 5 and take your place on the starting grid, because J.J. Abrams and his Bad Robot pit-crew are looking to develop a live-action Speed Racer series for Apple TV+.
According to Variety Apple have given the green light to a series order for Speed Racer, which will be written by Ron Fitzgerald (Perry Mason, Friday Night Lights) and Hiram Martinez (The Last Ship, Snowpiercer), and executive produced by J.J. Abrams under his Bad Robot banner.
Speed Racer was a Manga series created in the 1960s by by Tatsuo Yoshida. Known as Mach GoGoGo it was soon adapted into an animated series which ran for 52 episodes and told the story of Gô Mifune, a teenager obsessed with becoming the world’s best race-car champion. His racing team consisted of his parents, his little brother Spritle, his pet chimp Chim Chim, his mechanic Sparky and his girlfriend Trixie. Speed also had a rivalry with the enigmatic Racer X, who it would later be revealed was Speed’s older brother Rex Racer.
The Wachowski siblings were given $120M and change in an attempt to bring this world to the big-screen in 2008, but despite a cult following (imo it’s really rather good), the film stalled critically and commercially, failing to reach $100M worldwide.
Abrams currently has Justice League Dark, Constantine, and Madame X in the works for HBO Max, his much talked about Superman reboot for Warner Bros., as well as big budget sci-fi drama Demimonde for HBO, so who knows how long Speed Racer might be stuck in the garage for.
Let us know whether you’re excited to see another lap with a live-action Speed Racer by heading to our social channels @FlickeringMyth…
