Draft:Mega Man (film)

Mega Man (tentative title) is an upcoming American science fiction action film based on the Capcom video game franchise Mega Man. Directed by Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman from a script they wrote with Mattson Tomlin and Josh Koenigsberg, the film is produced by Capcom, Chernin Entertainment, and Supermarché for the streaming service Netflix.

A Mega Man film entered development in December 2014 at 20th Century Fox and was revealed in September 2015 with Chernin Entertainment involved. Joost and Schulman were hired by July 2017, and Capcom officially announced the film in October 2018. After Fox was acquired by Disney in March 2019, work continued at Capcom and Chernin, and Tomlin was hired in January 2020 to rewrite the script. Netflix picked up the film by December 2021 as part of a deal with Chernin, and Koenigsberg joined by August 2022.

Mega Man is set to be released on Netflix.

Development
Development on a feature film adaptation of the Mega Man video game series published by Capcom had begun by December 2014, at which point 20th Century Fox had registered a website domain for such a film. Fox was revealed to be developing the film in September 2015 with Chernin Entertainment, whose CEO Peter Chernin was producing. The executives overseeing the production were Chernin's David Ready and Michael Finfer alongside Fox's Mike Ireland and Ryan Horrigan. Fox had attempted to secure the film rights to Mega Man for over two years, and officially signed a deal to do so in early 2017. Filmmaking duo Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman were in final negotiations to write and direct the film in July 2017, when Masi Oka joined as a producer. In October 2018, Capcom officially announced the film, confirmed the involvement of Joost, Schulman, and Oka, and that it would be live-action with a high budget to depict the world of the Mega Man games. The film was given the tentative title Mega Man, and was a part of Capcom's plans to increase the value of the franchise following the Mega Man original series video game Mega Man 11, which was released that month. The film was intended to appeal to both video game and action film audiences. After the Walt Disney Company officially acquired Fox in March 2019, Disney CEO Bob Iger announced in August that several films in development at Fox were no longer moving forward, citing operating losses from that studio in Disney's third fiscal quarter. The Mega Man film was believed to have been shelved, but Capcom reaffirmed its development that October and stated the film was planned to create further awareness for the brand.

In January 2020, Disney and Chernin mutually agreed to end their producing deal inherited from Fox, citing Disney rarely having third-party studios finance their films. Chernin Entertainment was set to retain 70 of its projects from Fox, while the remaining productions were Disney-owned properties that would still involve Chernin as an executive producer. Later that month, Mattson Tomlin was revealed to be rewriting the Mega Man script. In April, Chernin Entertainment signed a non-exclusive multi-year first-look film deal with the streaming service Netflix. Joost and Schulman said in July that major updates would soon be provided for the film, and confirmed they invited Tomlin to co-write the script after he wrote their Netflix film Project Power (2020). The duo wanted to combine their interest in robotics and the future of automation with their favorite Mega Man games, and called Mega Man an "underdog hero". In August, Tomlin said his approach was to explore Mega Man as a real person with a "primal and emotional" story that could be relatable beyond the character's traditional depictions. In December 2021, Joost and Schulman's production company Supermarché was revealed to be developing the film alongside Chernin Entertainment for Netflix, with the duo's in-house producer Orlee-Rose Strauss also attached. Ryan Leston at IGN reported the film was still in early development at that time. Schulman confirmed in August 2022 that he and Joost were still writing the film for Netflix, saying it would explore the future of automation and whether "man and robot becoming one" was a good or bad combination. Joost soon revealed that Josh Koenigsberg, who co-wrote the duo's film Secret Headquarters (2022), was writing a new draft of the screenplay with the duo and hoped to turn in a completed draft to Netflix in the following weeks. Koenigsberg said he had replayed past Mega Man video games to research the property.

Release
Mega Man is set to be released on the streaming service Netflix.