The jump from producer Erwin Stoff to actor Keanu Reeves was a predictable one – the movies they’ve made together are numerous – The Matrix, A Scanner Darkly, The Lake House, Constantine, The Day the Earth Stool Still, The Devil’s Advocate – to name but a few.

Variety broke the news in January this year, additionally revealing that Peter Craig is set to pen the screenplay with Joshua Long as an executive producer. Sunrise Inc., producers of the anime, shall have close involvement with the film’s development with Kenji Uchida and Shinichiro Watanabe to act as associate producers next to writer Keiko Nobumoto; series producer Masahiko Minami shall act as a production consultant.

Reeves will take on the role of Spike Spiegel, an adventurous bounty hunter traveling through space in 2071.

Story follows the adventures of a group of bounty hunters traveling on their spaceship, the Bebop. Peter Craig has been tapped to write the screenplay.

On July 22nd 2008 IF Magazine posted an article revealing the first news of a Live Action movie adaptation of Cowboy Bebop – a project under the watchful eyes of 20th Century Fox with producer Erwin Stoff (I am Legend, Constantine, The Matrix) at the helm:

“I’m developing COWBOY BEBOP for Fox, but doing it as a live-action film, so I’m working on that at the moment,” Stoff tells iF. “I’m really excited to be working on it, and it’s in the really early stages. We just signed it the other day.”

Stoff continued with a statement of good intent in regards to a faithful adaptation:

“I have such an enormous admiration for its creators, that our first and foremost concern is going to be a real degree of faithfulness to the tone of the movie, to the mix of genres, and so on and so forth,” he says. “When I met with them in Japan, one of the first things that I brought up was the experience that we had on A SCANNER DARKLY, and how hard we worked to remain faithful to Philip K. Dick, and that was our big concern here.”

On the qualms of a correct cast – at least in the eyes of fans, Stoff brushed aside the issue:

“Flak about choices is meaningless until people see the movie,” he notes. “When people see the movie, then criticism has a place in it.”