Kenji Uchida, the president of the Sunrise anime studio, told attendees of a Tokyo International Anime Fair (TAF) 2009 symposium that actor Keanu Reeves’ enthusiasm for its Cowboy Bebop anime was the deciding factor in the recent live-action film deal. Uchida said Reeves himself visited Japan twice to express his interest in adapting the stylized science-fiction anime, and added that if Reeves had not done so, the deal might not have been made. Uchida further noted that the difficult negotiations with the Twentieth Century Fox film studio continued for two years until agreeable contract terms were drafted. He emphasized that the contract allows Sunrise to assert quality control by stating, “If the script is terrible, the live-action film adaptation will not be approved.”

Actor Keanu Reeves told MTV News that the proposed live-action Cowboy Bebop film project is currently being rewritten. During a press event for The Private Lives of Pippa Lee film which he’s starring in, he said, “There’s a draft of the script, but the writer did such a great job that in order to make the movie, you would need half a billion dollars($500,000,000.00). So the studio went, ‘This movie is fantastic and it would cost half a billion dollars. So he’s doing a rewrite.” Reeves added that the producers are “just trying to pull it back” in scope, and “the only challenge was to make a satisfying western narrative.”

Reeves also indicated that “everyone is in there” from the main characters of Shinichiro Watanabe and Sunrise’s Cowboy Bebop anime series. Peter Craig is writing the screenplay for the American film studio Twentieth Century Fox, the production company 3 Arts Entertainment, and Sunrise. Reeves is slated to star. Joshua Long is acting as a production supervisor, and Erwin Stoff, a film producer who worked closely with Reeves on The Matrix and A Scanner Darkly, is also attached. The associate producers are Sunrise President Kenji Uchida, the original Cowboy Bebop director Shinichiro Watanabe, and the original series script supervisor Keiko Nobumoto. The Sunrise studio itself and Masahiko Minami (former Sunrise producer and BONES studio co-founder) are both acting as production consultants.