D3 publishing new Astro Boy game @ Gaming Target

Written by John Scalzo on November 06, 2008

News: Based on next year's CGI movie.

The very popular manga and anime Astro Boy is getting a new computer-generated movie next year and D3 Publisher has announced they will be publishing the game based on it. The games are scheduled to be released for console and handheld systems in Q4 2009 to coincide with the worldwide release of the movie in Q4 2009.

The original manga and anime were created by Osamu Tezuka and the new movie seems to be very faithful to the original:

Set in the future, Imagi Studio's Astro Boy is a classic superhero origin story about a young robot with incredible powers and his adventure-filled journey in search of his identity and destiny, taking him into a netherworld of robot gladiators before he returns to save Metro City.

David Bowers (Flushed Away) is directing Astro Boy from a screenplay written by Timothy Harris (Kindergarten Cop, Trading Places), with Maryann Garger producing. The all-star cast is headed by Academy Award-winning actor Nicolas Cage, Kristen Bell, Nathan Lane, Bill Nighy, Eugene Levy and Donald Sutherland, with Freddie Highmore in the title role.

The most recent video games to feature Astro Boy were released several years ago for the PlayStation 2 (titled simply Astro Boy) and the Game Boy Advance (Astro Boy: Omega Factor, which was developed by shooter specialists Treasure). Both were based on the 2003 Astro Boy anime series.